


Days of Becoming

by Talktooloose



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Coming of Age, Gen, Multi, Novel, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:16:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 385,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talktooloose/pseuds/Talktooloose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sudden increase in the manifestations of young mutants causes panic across America. Two young mutants, Bobby Drake and St. John Allerdyce follow very different and sometimes converging paths to adulthood. What do you believe in when everything you've trusted is gone? The action begins a year before X1 and finishes following X3. </p><p>WARNINGS:<br/>This novel contains explicit sexuality, both heterosexual and homosexual. Characters swear as necessary.</p><p>The X-Men are owned by Marvel and 20th Century Fox. My original characters are owned by me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Just Wanna Be Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Days of Becoming was written between February 2006 an February 2010, and first serialized online on LiveJournal. It takes place before, during and after the first three X-Men movies. It does not take any of the X-movies that followed as canon.
> 
> The book was beta-read with great care and passion by Kuriadalmatia, Mofic, and Lux Apollo. All three made significant contributions, and taught me important lessons about writing.
> 
> It is fitting that this, my first novel draws on my lifelong passion for comic books, and the X-Men in particular. The X-Men were created in 1963, the year I was born. I discovered them with the first issue of the classic Claremont/Byrne/Austin run of the late-1970s, early 80s. Although I did not follow them for many years after that, the release of the movies reignited my interest. Even more significant was my discovery of the vibrant world of X-Men fanfic online. I am grateful for the stories of my three betas, as well as those of Minisinoo, To Cry About, Verde Speaks and others.
> 
> The characters are drawn from the X-Men movies, as well as comicverse, and even the cartoon “X-Men: Evolution.” The character of John Allerdyce is the incarnation from the second and third movies, as played by Aaron Stanford. I owe a debt to other writers in this fandom who fleshed out John’s character beyond the simple thug he is in the movies. Like his comicsverse counterpart, he is a writer. My Kitty Pryde, who is played onsecreen by three actresses in conflicting styles, is not any of these. She is closer to the comicsverse character.
> 
> My goals with this novel were to write a believeable coming out story of a young gay man, and to set that story believably in the universe of the X-Men movies. I also wanted to explore the world of the movies further. I wished to unite the somewhat disparate elements of the cinematic narrative, and to clarify plots like the Phoenix story and the fate of Scott Summers which were highly unsatisfying to most fans. Ditto the sad fade-out of Rogue’s character. Furthermore, I wanted Jubilee to play a larger role, and for Jones to be more than a glorified remote control.
> 
> The novel grew far, far larger than I had ever dreamed, partly because of the inclusion of my original characters (Mike Haddad, Andi Murakami, Xeno Evil, Derek and Tonio, Rayen, and others).
> 
> I hope you enjoy the novel as much as I enjoyed writing it. KUDOS AND COMMENTS DEEPLY APPRECIATED!
> 
> If you're interested in following my non-fanfic creations, you can find my writing, music, and comics [here](http://jmarshallfreeman.com).
> 
> Talktooloose

**BOOK 1: Wake-Up Call**

_Welcome! You have entered [2gether] at 8:45 pm_  
 _[2gether]: StoneCold has entered at 8:46 pm_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:46 pm > They’re at it again._  
 _[Gundamguy] 8:46 pm > fighting?_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:46 pm > ya. Such bullshit_  
 _[Gundamguy] 8:46 pm > He break anything yet?_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 8:47 pm > u ok? u safe?_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:47 pm > no he’s not nuts tonite. Yet._  
 _[StoneCold] 8:48 pm > ya, don’t worry bout me. Shit. He’s downstairs screaming U NEVER LISTEN U JUST WNAT TO GET YOUR WAY!_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 8:48 pm > asshole_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:48 pm > no, not asshole! He just cant talk like a normal person in a normal voice._  
 _[DarkPrincess] 8:49 pm > is so an asshole. Thats how my dad talks when he calls my mum. STOP CONTROLLING ME BITCH!! Same shit_  
 _[2gether]: 2AWESOME has entered at 8:49 pm_  
 _[Gundamguy] 8:50 pm > You could hear him? _  
_[Gundamguy] 8:50 pm > Hi, 2AWESOME_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:50 pm > Hi 2_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 8:50 pm > I was listening on fone. Then mum said if you come here I’ll call the cops and he said try it bitch_  
 _[2AWESOME] 8:51 pm > YOUR MUM SHOULD BUY A SHOTGUN. BLOW HIM A NEW ASSHOLE._  
 _[Gundamguy] 8:51 pm > I was wondering when ud make a helpful suggestion like that, 2AWESOME_  
 _[2AWESOME] 8:52 pm > fuckin make SWISS CHEESE out of him. Then melt him down for FONDUE_  
 _[Gundamguy] 8:52 pm > LOL_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:53pm > Ur a grade A jerkoff, 2AWESOME_ . 

“Bobby?” He heard his door shoosh open over the worn, cream carpeting and he quickly minimized the chat window. He sat very still, staring at his Fullmetal Alchemist desktop. Why was she here? Wasn’t it bad enough he had to listen to them? Couldn’t they leave him alone in his room to rot like the corpse of this sorry family? 

When he didn’t respond, she began in a voice full of forced cheer, “Don’t stay up too late. It’s a school night. Okay, honey?” 

There was an itchy feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sickening wave of cold that began radiating through his veins. He realized he hated her; hated that she let his dad yell at her like she was NOTHING; hated her for pretending everything was okay — that the Drake family wasn’t falling apart around them. And realizing he hated her, he wanted to cry and run into her arms. 

“Okay, Mom. Goodnight,” he said, his back to her, voice smooth and neutral. He was a liar and a fake. He hated himself, too. 

“Bobby,” she began cautiously, “I-I just wanted to say that we’re sorry… we shouldn’t yell like that.” 

_Shut up, shut up_ , was all he could think. _Leave me alone. Don’t make me say shit_. But the wave of cold fury had filled him full and it spilled over. “‘We,’ Mom? You speaking for Dad here, too? You learn that in Parenting 101?” He swiveled his chair to look at her. “‘Always present a united front’? That’s just bullshit!” She gasped and he felt a hollow satisfaction as he turned back to the screen, staring at nothing. He realized he had begun to shake. 

“Don’t…” She paused and he waited for her retribution, for tears, for something real. “Don’t stay up too late, Bobby,” she said and closed the door. 

Shoosh. Click. 

He continued to sit and stare. The wave of cold seemed to flow under his skin, like the winter lake under its skin of ice, and he shivered more. For a week now he’d found himself suddenly cold or suddenly hot like he was getting sick or something. Maybe he wouldn’t rot in here; maybe he’d freeze solid. Before he could open the chat window again, he heard a small tapping on his door, like someone hadn’t fully committed to the knocking process. 

“Come in, Ronny,” Bobby sighed. The 12-year-old entered cautiously, like a spy deep in enemy territory, checking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t followed. He closed the door behind him and then threw himself onto Bobby’s bed looking over at his big brother, his brow crinkled in concentration as if he was wasn’t sure Bobby was who he appeared to be. 

“Do you think they’re finished?” he whispered. 

“Like with the marriage?” Bobby asked in a normal voice. 

“No!” the boy snapped back, dropping his spy’s caution. “I mean, you think they’re finished screaming for the night?” He was wearing his pajamas, ready for bed, his teeth already brushed. He folded his arms across his chest and beat one of his legs on the mattress a few times. 

Bobby turned his chair to him. “Yeah, I think so. I heard Dad go out back for a smoke. That usually means the fire’s gone back underground. Were you scared?” 

“No.” The boy looked away and reached out to run a finger across the smooth surface of Bobby’s red snowboard, propped in the corner. “Yeah, a bit.” 

“Listen, buddy,” Bobby began softly, wondering if his friends had logged out in his absence, “I’ve gotta get back to work here…” 

Ronny’s sigh seemed too grown-up and world-weary for someone barely into puberty. He looked up at Bobby and said, “I don’t think Tabitha is coming back.” 

Their three-year-old cat had run away a week earlier when the furniture had started crashing around her. She had gotten out through a crack in the patio door and hadn’t been heard from since. Bobby knew Ronny had cried about that for a couple of days, but he had refused any comfort, and Bobby had been secretly relieved. He didn’t know where words of comfort could have come from when he felt so needy himself. But this was his little brother; if Bobby couldn’t be there for him, what kind of selfish bastard was he? 

“She’ll be okay, Ron. Cats are resilient.” 

“What’s that mean?” 

“Tough. Adaptable. Listen, I have to do something now. How about if you get into bed and I’ll come and say goodnight in a few minutes?” 

Ronny suddenly smiled brightly and his precocious melancholy seemed to lift. “Okay! Mom didn’t come in at all! I guess she thought I was asleep already.” He hopped off the bed, ran to the door and, playing the spy once more, checked the hall carefully and bolted for his room. 

Bobby shivered. Maybe his dad had already turned down the furnace for the night. His fingers looked blue. He waggled them to get the circulation going. 

_[StoneCold] 8:57 pm > Hi. Back._  
 _[gundamguy] 8:57 pm > So u just gonna shoot anyone who fucks with u?_  
 _[2AWESOME] 8:58 pm > Ya. If they realy get up my ass. The rest--- I’ll just torture._  
 _[darkprincess] 8:58 pm > hey StoneCold! Wut haped?_  
 _[gina] 8:58 pm > StoneCold! Luver! Yer parents at it again?_  
 _[gundamguy] 8:59 pm > yer a total psycho, awesum_  
 _[StoneCold] 8:59 pm > hi gina! my mom came in. tried to fk;I fuckingg pretend nothing was wroiuog _  
_[StoneCold] 8:59 pm > fuck. WRONG. shivering. Cant type._  
 _[gina] 9:00 pm > you okay?_  
 _[darkprincess] 9:00 pm > its okay, StoneCold. They’re the ones who are full of shit_  
 _[StoneCold] 9:01 pm > No I’m okay! I’m just cold, oK? gotta sign off. go tuck my little bro in_  
 _[2AWESOME] 9:01 pm > I got my shotgun, dude. Pow!_  
 _[StoneCold] 9:01 pm > yeah, great. Thanks, 2awe_  
 _[gundamguy] 9:02 pm > don’t let it get to you_  
 _[gina] 9:02 pm > we’ve all been there_  
 _[darkprincess] 9:03 pm > yeah hang tough_  
 _[StoneCold] 9:03 pm > thx guys. Nite_  
 _[2AWESOME] 9:03 pm > POW! POW! *screaming*_  
 _[gundamguy] 9:03 pm > ROTFL_  
 _[2gether] > [StoneCold] has left at 9:04 pm_

 

Bobby called it the art of being absent. It was a way of moving through the day at school so that no one noticed him. He learned it from watching the misfits, the kids who got picked on, the terminally shy, the new immigrants who had no one from their culture around them. This was new for Bobby who had always been a popular and bright student. But as the Drake family had deteriorated into whatever loose assemblage of humans it was now, he had found it harder and harder to engage at school. At first, this landed him in trouble and got him a lot of concerned offers of help and _questions, questions._ But he grew sick of being a needy case and of taking up this place of concern in everyone’s life. He just wanted to disappear. 

So he did. 

When had he first moved to the back of the classroom? From the time he was little, he had always sat in the second or third row (not the first, because it was also fun to have some _action_ around him), raising his hand to answer every question. But as he had become “absent Bobby,” he had begun spending more and more time in the dark recesses of his American History class and his Biology class until he had started to think of certain seats — last row, two from the door — as “his.” 

It was amazing, actually, how easy it was to disappear; how little work it took to make teachers who used to praise his ideas and laugh at his dumb jokes suddenly completely ignore him. Mrs. Williams didn’t even look at him as she dropped his essay on his desk. C minus. 

He stared at the red ink in a kind of awe. He had never seen anything like that. Teachers used to be sort of embarrassed to give him B’s and followed those up with after-class pseudo-stern talks about “potential”. But Mrs. Williams hadn’t even blinked. He realized he had successfully dropped off her radar — just another mediocre student sliding through the year into oblivion. To her, he wasn’t worth the effort and that made him feel… safe, maybe. It made him feel that no one would ever expect him to do anything again. Never expect him to be a good student, respectful son, or useful citizen. They would just leave him alone. He realized there were tears in his eyes and he dropped his gaze quickly to his textbook, reading not a word of History, studiously learning nothing. 

Back at his locker, he practiced more of The Art. _The Way of the Absent_ , he would call the seminar and bestselling book. He breathed evenly and kept his face pointing forward, his mind on the mundane tasks of packing his knapsack, pulling on his goretex jacket and freeing his skateboard from the tangle of gym clothes and old lunch bags. He registered the arrival of two people beside him and turned slowly to see his friends, Mike Haddad and Paul Greenstein. 

Mike playfully body-checked him and Bobby had to grab the locker door for support. His skateboard hit the floor and skidded across the corridor. “Oh! and Drake goes down!” Mike crowed. “Where the hell have you been, Bobby? I feel like I haven’t seen you in a year!” 

“I’ve been here. I’m just, um, busy with a lot of shit.” He _had_ to leave. He began zipping up the jacket, but he couldn’t get the two sides to come together. 

“Bullshit,” Paul responded. “You just hide out in the stairwells during study periods and lunch reading a lot of sci-fi and not talking to anyone.” 

“You spying on me, Paul?” Bobby burst out, giving up on the stubborn zipper. “I’m just… I just need some time alone, okay? Is that a huge fucking problem for you?” Bobby’s chest was thrust out and his fists were curling, his voice getting high. 

Mike stepped between them, “Easy, Bobby. No one’s fucking spying on you. Shit! We just want to know if there’s anything wrong. We’re all buddies, isn’t that right,? Oh fuck, Paul! You got a huge goddamn booger hanging out of your nose! You are so gross!” 

The other boy wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve and shot back, “Yeah, and you fart like a volcano, Haddad, you faggot!” 

“At least I don’t ooze atomic snot, you fucking mutant!!” 

Bobby took the opportunity to get away. He jumped on his board and skated down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve gotta get home, guys! I’ll have lunch with you tomorrow. I promise.” 

He burst from the school, skated through the parking lot and hit the streets, feeling like he had shed a hundred pounds. Even the lousy weather couldn’t take away from the feeling of freedom skateboarding gave him. It was the end of April, but it was cold and pissing rain. The month had started deceptively warm and their neighbors, the Kincaids — overly hopeful transplants from Virginia — had filled their swimming pool. But Boston weather was notoriously temperamental and now their backyard pride and joy was collecting debris and waiting grimly for its day in the sun. 

April, the last months of ninth grade. His first year as a real high-schooler could not have been more of a disaster — and not just academically. The Fall seemed impossibly far in the future and he couldn’t imagine what his life might look like by then. Would he even be living here? Maybe his mom would take off with him and Ronny to live with Grandma and Grandpa on their farm outside Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. The nightmare of that fate hung heavily on him as the rain soaked his hair and his shoes. His skateboard wheels made a _zeeeeeeeee_ through the puddles. 

Or maybe he should stay with his dad? He used to like his dad and would ask him questions about his engineering job. His dad delighted in drawing engine diagrams to teach Bobby and he in turn delighted in the attention. But that wasn’t the frustrated, short-tempered dad whose work and whose family had both become unbearable prisons. Bobby didn’t like his dad now. He only loved him. 

Bobby came around the corner to his street, riding smoothly and pumping with a lean, strong leg. His balance had gone funny when he shot up almost two feet after puberty, but now he was all control and grace. He didn’t care for ollies, kickflips and the other tricks. He just wanted smooth speed, turning corners in perfect arcs with the slightest shift of his weight. Seeing his house come into view, he sighed, knowing he’d be a dull heavy human again in minute. 

He left his sodden shoes and socks by the door and hung his jacket up in the laundry room to dry. His jeans were wet up to his thighs and his shirt was damp from collar to chest, from cuff to elbow. But weirdly he didn’t feel at all cold. Closing his bedroom door, he pulled off his wet sweater and his t-shirt and threw them towards the hamper. He looked up at his favorite snowboarding poster and threw his arms out to the side, bending his knees to take a big jump on a great hill. 

Drake, the effortless snow dog, King of the Mountain. 

He moved to his computer, called up a browser window and typed the URL from memory. No, he wasn’t cold, even without his shirt on; if anything, his body seemed to be emanating a comforting warmth. More weird temperature shit — but he wasn’t about to say “no” to comfort. 

“Staying 2Gether” was the name of the website. He had found it, like most of the other kids who used the chat room, by Googling “divorce”. It had a bunch of FAQs and links (half of them expired) to resources for kids coping with the divorce of their parents. Gina had told him that it had been set up a few years earlier by a guy who had crashed and burned after his parents divorced and he wanted to help others. 

In the two months Bobby had been an anonymous participant in the ongoing roundtable of grieving, he had come across “beenthere” — the nickname of the site’s owner — just twice and then only briefly, as if the phantom founder just dropped by sometimes like an absent god haunting his creation. 

Of the 20 or so kids he knew there, there was a core of about seven who logged on nearly every day. At first, he had felt like a poser, because how bad could his life be? But talking about what he was going through and having them listen made him feel like he had made the right choice. In fact, he had become more outgoing about helping others and that gave him the only sense of identity he had these days. 

Darkprincess and Gundamboy both said he really helped them. And then, when things had gotten worse at home in the last six weeks, they had been there for him. But that made him feel guilty, too. He didn’t want people worrying about him. He didn’t want to be a burden. 

He hadn’t been thinking of Stone Cold Steve Austin exactly when he came up with his nickname (though he had been a pro-wrestling addict). He was thinking “stone cold dead”. Maybe he meant the family, but maybe he meant the joyous boy that everyone used to think of when they thought of Bobby Drake: the boy who never walked when he could run. The boy who would collapse into ten minutes of rib-breaking hysterics at the dumbest of knock-knock jokes. The boy who had the tenderness to take the broken-winged sparrow home and nurse it back to health. 

“StoneCold” was Bobby Drake’s granite gravestone. 

_Welcome! You have entered [2gether] at 4:22 pm_  
 _[2gether]: StoneCold has entered at 4:22 pm_  
 _[gina] 4:22 pm > My man! How was school?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:23 pm > Was I at school? Oh yeah. I suck. I got a C- in history_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:23 pm > My mom wishes I got Cs_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:23 pm > Did the papers come_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:34 pm > Yup. Offical and everythng. There really divorced._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:24 pm > shit sorry_  
 _[gina] 4:24 pm > you knew it was going to happen_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:24 pm > u ok?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:24 pm > of course I knw. Still thot mayb… there so stupid. They love each other_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:24 pm > maybe they don’t. Maybe they stopped loving each other_  
 _[gina] 4:25 pm > for my mom, that wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:25 > stopd loving each othr. Fuck. I wish I knew how to do that. If I didn’t luv mom I’d hit the road_  
 _[gina] 4:26 pm > and go where? You’re only 16._  
 _[gundamboy] 4:26 pm > wanna take off with me stoncold? 16 is old enough. Go to Nu York_  
 _[2gether]: HORNICATOR has entered at 4:26 pm_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:27 pm > I’m only 15 gundam. But sure lets go. I think about that alot. Everything be ok maybe if I cud leave._  
 _[HORNICATOR] 4:28 pm > I WANNA FUCK THE WHOLE WORLD._  
 _[gina] 4:28 pm > oh, great. New York. And in two months you’ll be hustlers and drug addicts._  
 _[gina] 4:28 pm > WHAT THE FUCK? Were talking serious shit here, buddy_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:29 pm > um, hi? Hornicator._  
 _[HORNICATOR] 4:29 pm > THE WORLD IS MY WET PUSSY!!!!!!!!!!!_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:29 pm > why do I think I no this person._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:29 pm > ur rite gb. Hornicator r u the artist formerly known as 2awsum?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:30 pm > Id never be hustlr gina. gross_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:30 pm > yer so gay awsum_  
 _[HORNICATOR] 4:30 pm > I AM THE AWESOME HORNICATOR. BOW BEFORE MY DIK!!!!!!!!!!_  
 _[gina] 4:31 pm > classy. And don’t use gay like that gundam. U don’t know who’s really gay in here. It doesn’t mean the same as “lame”_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:32 pm > ok! ok! You are the HORNIBATOR!_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:32 pm > can I call him a mutie, gina?_  
 _[HORNICATOR] 4:33 pm > bow down, StoneCold! I AM a mutie, gundamfart. My mutant THREE FOOT COCK compels you to bow down!!!_  
 _[gina] 4:33 pm > omg u know what happened at school? Speaking of mutants?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:33 pm > See, StoneCold? Hes a total fag!_  
 _[gina] 4:34 pm > This grade 7 girl is in the showers after gym. And she suddenly falls on the floor, like she’s having a seizure and she TURNS GREEN! Her whole body. Green. _  
_[StoneCold] 4:34 pm > like gonna be sick green or kermit the frog green?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:34 pm > fuck_  
 _[gina] 4:35 pm > like broccoli green. She’s suddenly a mutant. And she got up and ran out of the school and she never came back_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:36 pm > u were there?_  
 _[gina] 4:36 pm > no I heard about it_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:37 pm > Did her friends run after her? Was she ok?_  
 _[gina] 4:38 pm > I don’t think so. I think her parents ahve like left town and everything._  
 _[gundamboy] 4:38 pm > that wud have been fukiing cool to see_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:38 pm > omg. She must be like FUCK. Like her life is over._  
 _[gina] 4:39 pm > I dunno. I think they’re all afraid._  
 _[HORNICATOR] 4:39 pm > her friends? She hasn’t got any friends. Not now. They dropped her in 2 seconds guaranteed. And the school probably phoned the parents and told them “in the BEST INTEREST of your daughter you should withdraw her from our high and pure fucking hypocrite bastard institution” and the parents are probably all BOO HOO CALL THE DOCTOR, CALL THE EXPERTS but they really just want to DROP HER DOWN THE FUCKING INCINERATOR WITH THE TRASh because if yer green then FUCK YOU. If yer fucking inconvenient. If yer an EMBARRASSMENT. Are you all so stupid? Parents only care as long as NOTHING GOES WRONG. Would our parents be splitting up if they gave SINGLE FLYING FUCKING GODDAMMN SHIT?!! Mutant? Might as well go throw yourself off a cliff, green girl. Yer finished. FUCK! _  
_[2gether] > [HORNICATOR] has left at 4:41 pm_  
 _[gina] 4:41 pm > holy shit._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:41 pm > omg what was that?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:41 pm > he types RILLY fast._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:42 pm > crap. Im worried about him_  
 _[gina] 4:43 pm > Drama, StoneCold. He’s mr. drama._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:43 pm > I better go and ACTULLY study something. I cant keep fucking up at school._  
 _[gundamboy] 4:43 pm > maybe Ill go 2. its so quiet here_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:44 pm > where is everyone lately?_  
 _[gina] 4:44 pm > there were a bunch of newbies on after 11 last night. We had a good discussion about shared custody for a few hours_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:45 pm > u ever sleep?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:45 pm > bye_  
 _[2gether] > [gundamboy] has left at 4:45 pm_  
 _[gina] 4:45 pm > not lately. Never know when the aliens will attack. I love you stone._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:46 pm > lol. U 2, baby. Later days_  
 _[2gether] > [StoneCold] has left at 4:46 pm _

He spent the 90 minutes before dinner with his head buried in his Biology text, actually taking in some of what he read. Genetics. Characteristics and traits passed on from parent to child. So how did mutants become mutants? he wondered. Bobby kept imagining the green girl, locked in her room, her white parents pounding on the door, getting desperate. He imagined her with a knife in her hand, peeling the offending skin off, leaving herself red, raw and human underneath. 

He must have fallen asleep as dinnertime approached because he was suddenly jerking upright, disoriented in the darkness, the rain pelting against the window. He was shivering again. He went to his closet and pulled on a flannel shirt. He became aware of raised voices leaking through from downstairs and his heart started pounding instantly. He wanted to shout, ‘How am I supposed to study like this? How are we supposed to live?’ when he realized there was a high counterpoint to his father’s deep bark. Ronny. He ran from his room to the top of the stairs to find out what was happening. 

“You clearly don’t give a damn if you pass this year at all!” his father shouted angrily. 

“I do!” Ronny squealed, clearly on the verge of tears. 

“Then how do you explain these marks? Why should your teacher pass you if you insult her with this kind of effort?!” His rhetoric and his cruelty rose like an echo of the storm outside. 

“We’ll go down for dinner in a minute, Bobby,” his mother said, suddenly appearing on the landing behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder conspiratorially. Bobby was so startled he yelped. Below, two heads turned sharply to look at him. His father’s face was a red wound of anger under the graying curls; Ronny’s was a blur of almost-shed tears. 

“Robert! Come downstairs. Supper is ready,” snapped his father, grabbing a flinching Ronny by the shoulder and steering him around the corner to the dining room table. His mother patted Bobby on the shoulder, slipping past him and descending the stairs as if the world was normal, as if gravity was still behaving itself. For Bobby, everything felt woozy and topsy-turvy and he held the banister tightly as he descended. 

The four of them sat down around the table and his mother began serving the spaghetti dinner. The sounds of silverware on porcelain were unnaturally loud in the deafening silence of the room. Bobby seemed to hear a low hum over everything and he shook his head to clear his ears. He was still shivering. His mother handed him his plate but as he moved to put it down, it suddenly seemed to burn him, to sear his flesh to the bone or maybe it gave him a biting electric shock! He dropped the plate the last inch to the table. It clattered and a meatball rolled across the tablecloth. He grabbed his hand and stared at it, but it seemed undamaged. He looked up at the glares of the others and then quickly dropped his eyes and focused on his plate. 

Dipping his fork into the food, he began to eat but he almost choked on the first mouthful. This couldn’t be right! His food was cold. Not just _not warm_ : cold! He looked up, confused at the steam rising from the serving plate, at the others blowing on their forkfuls of spaghetti and his head seemed to spin. _What is wrong with this picture?_ He forced down clumps of congealed sauce and tough pasta and decided that he was still sleeping. This was a nightmare. He couldn’t… wake up… couldn’t…. connect. The humming in his head was rising to a constant buzz and he wanted to ask to be excused, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. And his mother was going on about something awful she heard on the news, rattling on loudly, almost jovially and it was like a knife in his head. 

“They said that there is a growing _epidemic_ of mutant teenagers. One boy left three of his classmates and a teacher in comas. Another one short-circuited the electrical grid and the whole community lost power _for a week!_ It’s frightening. They could be anywhere!” 

Bobby’s stomach was rioting against the cold, hard food. His father was staring and staring at Ronny who was pushing pasta around his plate. 

“What do you do, Ronny, after dinner when you claim to be studying in your room?” his father suddenly asked in an acid voice, as if the lecture had never ended. “Because you obviously aren’t doing your homework! It’s the sixth grade, for the love of God! How hard could the homework be?!” 

Bobby’s looked up warily. He glanced from his father to Ronny who was frozen now, scared to be back in the spotlight. 

“William,” his mother began, her voice tight and thin, “Maybe you could try being _encouraging_ instead of deflating him like a _balloon!_ ” 

“So, it’s fine with you if your son fails _sixth grade_ , Madeline? Is that the kind of standard you hold up for the boys?” 

“I expect them to the best they can! That’s all!” 

“Are you suggesting Ronny is a moron, Madeline? Because if that’s the best he can do…” 

“He’s not a moron!” Bobby heard himself shout. “Did he fail before? No! He’s always been a good student and you know it!” And he found himself rising to his feet as his voice rose. 

“Sit down, Robert,” his father growled, standing to meet the challenge, three inches taller than the 15-year-old and 40 pounds heavier. But Bobby didn’t obey. 

“No! Maybe he just can’t _concentrate_ , Dad! Maybe he could before when he lived in a _normal_ home instead of a fucking _circus_!” His eyes were locked on his fathers’ but he could feel the held breath, the stares of Ronny and his mom. “Maybe he did okay when he had two parents who gave a goddamn SHIT about him instead of scratching at each other like two baboons!” 

Bobby was on the ground before he could even register what had happened. His hand was on his cheek where he had been slapped, his chair was toppled over. His face was turning hot. He looked up at his father as his eyes filled with tears and couldn’t see anything he recognized. He didn’t know who that man was. Then he felt his stomach clenching. He scrambled to his feet and ran up the stairs, barely making it to the toilet before his dinner shot back up his throat and splashed loudly into the bowl. 

He continued to heave until there was nothing but mucus coming out of his mouth. Shaking, he stumbled back to his room thinking, ‘Mommy, are you gonna come and help me?’ But no one came. He slammed the door and threw himself onto his bed, face down, swearing and screaming into his pillow. Waves of hot and cold seemed to alternate in his body and he thought, _What’s going on, what’s wrong with me?!_

Twenty minutes passed before his body finally decided on simple shivering and he wrapped himself in a blanket and moved unsteadily back to his computer. _Come on, Gina,_ he thought, _Be there, please._ He checked the list of people in room: cory90, gina, gundamboy, hard_kitten. Thank god. He started to breathe more evenly, his eyes clearing as he blinked the tears away. 

_Welcome! You have entered [2gether] at 7:31 pm_  
 _[2gether]: StoneCold has entered at 7:31 pm_  
 _[hard_kitten] 7:31 pm > and the kids make ths plan to get the parents back together. So lame. And at the end they realize they all <3 each other. I puked all over the tv _  
_[gundamboy] 7:32 pm > it’s a remake of an old Disney. Hey! Stonecold!_  
 _[hard_kitten] 7:32 pm > hey stone_  
 _[gina] 7:32 pm > hi, baby._  
 _[StoneCold] 7:33 pm > h_  
 _[cory90] 7:33 pm > whycant a movie b real?_  
 _[hard_kitten] 7:33 pm > and im still puking_  
 _[gina] 7:34 pm > wont sell tickets, cory. People want to see sweet lies_  
 _[cory86] 7:35 pm > any1 seen a gud movie?_  
 _[2gether]: 2AWESOME has entered at 7:35 pm_  
 _[gundamboy] 7:35 pm > nu james bond is cool_  
 _[2AWESOME] 7:35 pm > I wrote a poem and I want to say it_  
 _[gundamboy] 7:36 pm > about ur dick?_  
 _[gina] 7:36 pm > is it about the man from Nantucket?_  
 _[2AWESOME] 7:37 pm > serious._  
 _[2AWESOME] 7:37 pm > You don’t want to hear I’ll leave._  
 _[StoneCold] 7:38 pm > I waant to hhear it, awejsome._  
 _[hard_kitten] 7:38 pm > lets here it_

Bobby sat up straight in his chair, clutching himself tight, his teeth chattering through the time it took “2Awesome” to type his piece and hit ‘enter’. 

_[2AWESOME] 7:39 pm > She’s green / Green with envy for your skin / Which doesn’t tell your secrets / Which doesn’t give you away / Your skin where you hide your pain from all the eyes // But she has nowhere to run / because everywhere she goes she is / The green girl // And when you have no place to put the secrets / You climb to the top of city / Where all the green spotlights pick you out / And you light yourself on fire / Screaming / I AM YOUR BILE / I AM YOUR HATRED / SEE ME / SEE ME / And you jump / The Human Torch / Falling red and yellow / Into their chickenshit loveless / Green hearts _

Bobby’s mouth hung open. Who was this guy? How did he know how Bobby felt? The shaking grew stronger and he swore at it through gritted teeth, trying to regain control of his body. 

_[gina] 7:42 pm > fuck. That’s just so perfect_  
 _[cory86] 7:43 pm > I like the part about bruningg like a torch_  
 _[dark_kitten] 7:43 pm > *cries*_

He needed to say something, to tell the guy behind the lame nickname that he understood him. That they were the same. He forced his shaking hands to the keyboard, fighting for control, typing like he was wearing boxing gloves, backspacing, correcting. 

_[StoneCold] 7:44 pm > my ddad just slappped me. he fuking hates mme._  
 _[gina] 7:45 pm > jesus, stone…_  
 _[2AWESOME] 7:46 pm > What? Slapped u? So fucking what? What do you want from us? It’s all pain, ASSHOLE!! That’s what the poem is about. Suck it up! My stepdad beat the shit out of me with his belt last week and I’m not FUCKING WHINING! _  
_[gina] 7:47 pm > Shut the fuck up! Who do you think u r? Just cuz you write a poem doesn’t make you more important than stone!_  
 _[dark_kitten] 7:48 pm > jesus don’t go postal, gina_  
 _[gina] 7:48 pm > Who are you anyway with all ur bullsht nicks?!! 2FUCKINGAWESOME, BONERBOY, HORNIBALONEY! Who are u?!!!!_  
 _[2gether] > [2AWESOME] has left at 7:48 pm_  
 _[gundamboy] 7:48 pm > wotta dik_  
 _[StoneCold] 7:48 pm > u didn’t have 2 do tthat gii. Did you hear hs poeerm. Fuck ppoelkm. FK_  
 _[2gether] > [StJohn] has entered at 7:49 pm_  
 _[gina] 7:49 pm > I don’t want him talking to you or ANYONE like that_  
 _[StJohn] 7:50 pm > There! You want fucking real, sister? Here I am! St. John! HERE I AM!! You’re probably some fat loner dressed in black who can only get little emo-boys to like you with your big mamma routine! Want some free advice? EAT SHIT AND GET A LIFE!!! _  
_[2gether] > [StJohn] has left at 7:50 pm_

Something was really wrong with his body, Bobby realized. He was in serious trouble and he couldn’t even call for help. Was this a seizure? Like that kid in gym class last year? If he could type his phone number, maybe Gina would call 911… but his hands weren’t working, he couldn’t move them; there was something in the way… Bobby looked down at the keyboard and — _oh my fucking god_ — it was covered in a layer of ice. ICE! 

And his hands were embedded in the ice and he looked up at the screen and they were fighting about 2Awesome — or was it really “StJohn” — and he couldn’t call to them! And the ice! It was growing across his desk and onto his knees and he wrenched himself up, pulling his hands away from the keyboard, the ice snapping and crackling. And his feet! His feet were getting frozen to the carpet. He pulled them up and part of the nap tore off with them. 

_Get out! Get out! Get away from the ice_ , was all his brain would say and so he moved. He ran for the door and he ran down the hall and the ice was coming from him and he was running down the stairs. Where were they? Where were all the fucking Drakes while he was dying? Around the corner in the dining room eating fucking spaghetti! Then he was out the kitchen door and into the rain. 

He stumbled through the muddy grass, his feet freezing to the ground every time he stopped. _Keep moving! Keep moving!_ And there were little icicles hanging off his hair, clattering by his ear, getting in his eyes. He swiped at them and then stumbled on Ronny’s baseball bat, which was lying on the flagstone path. Knees and elbows skinned, Bobby found himself gasping on the ground, the waves of hot and cold like knives through him. 

“Bobby? What’s going on?!” he heard his father call from the kitchen door. Bobby forced himself to his feet and a patch of skin tore loose across his palm where it had frozen to the flagstones. He ran, heavy with a layer of ice. His father was shouting behind him as he forced himself through the gap in the neighbor’s fence, sharp points of chain link cutting his side. 

He couldn’t let his father see him like this! 

Blinded by rain and icicles, Bobby tried to steer himself in the direction of the street, but suddenly, his feet were on concrete, which suddenly had a sheet of slick ice coating it. He felt his balance shift fatally, and a moment later he was in the deep end of the Kincaid’s swimming pool. 

Bobby felt himself sink to the bottom and realized that in seconds he would be encased in a block of ice. He would die, in late April, frozen in the pool. He hit the bottom and used all the strength in his long legs to push off. His head broke the thin crust of ice that had formed on the surface and he reached out blindly for the edge of the pool. Finding it by luck, he pulled his heavy form out desperately. Back on the concrete, he thrashed wildly, the ice snapping and breaking off him in sheets. He thought of his father, not a hundred feet away behind the hedge that covered the ugly fence and he wanted more than anything to call out to him, but he couldn’t get his breath, couldn’t stop his thrashing or he’d freeze solid. 

And then he heard the growl, and if he hadn’t already been coated in ice, his blood would have frozen. Through the blurring sheet in front of his eyes, he saw the slow approach of the neighbor’s rottweiler, Trixie, who was advancing with implacable menace on the boy, teeth bared, hackles raised. Bobby started crawling slowly backwards, the ice taking advantage of his slow movements to thicken. He wanted to call to the dog, calm her, but his voice was just not accessible and his strange movements seemed to frighten and infuriate the animal further. 

And then Trixie sprang, and she was suddenly on Bobby who pushed with strength he didn’t know he had left to keep the snapping jaws away from his throat. He got both hands around the beast’s neck and fought for his life. And then he saw what was happening. From beneath his hands, ice was climbing across the dog. As he watched in horror, the surprised animal’s head was quickly covered in a deadly, frozen cowl, and Bobby let go of its neck, finally finding his voice to shout out in terror. 

Trixie quickly forgot about her prey and began desperately pawing at the hard, smooth sheath that was suffocating her, falling on her back and kicking uselessly. Bobby watched in dumb horror as the dog convulsed and rolled, and then grew still, twitching less and less over the minutes that she died. 

Bobby realized he was sobbing. He crawled to the dead dog and pried at the ice on her muzzle. It was over. Whatever the fuck it was, it was over. The waves of hot and cold had stopped. His body was his own again and there was no more ice. He let himself drop to the ground, his face nuzzled against Trixie’s coarse fur. 

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. He looked around the yard and at the pool at the uneven patches of ice and frost that lay everywhere, as if God had thrown a great snowball into that had exploded on impact. Bobby ran his hands over himself, dislodging the last of the melting ice from his clothes and hair. 

Like a sleepwalker, he moved slowly back across the yard and through the gap in the fence. The icy footprints he had left in his wake were almost gone and as he approached his house, he saw his father on the covered patio, smoking. Bobby stopped and stared at him, feeling neither fear nor relief. He had nothing left inside him, and his stillness seemed to unnerve his father. 

“Robert. You can’t…” His father paused and took a long drag from his cigarette. “Look, I’m sorry I hit you; I lost my temper. But you can’t just lose control and run out into the rain like this just because something bad happens. Don’t you think I want to do that sometimes? Just run? This is life and you’re not a little boy. It’s time you took some responsibility for yourself.” 

Bobby just stared, the rain streaming off him. His father looked away first, scanning the darkness for some answer to his own riddles. 

They stood there in silence for a long moment before he said, “Go dry yourself off and get to bed, Bobby. The whole thing starts again in the morning. As usual.” 

Bobby stood under the hot shower for almost fifteen minutes. He washed the raw flesh on his palm and the cut on his side. He looked down at his body and despite everything that had just happened, it was still the same body he knew. He was desperately tired and as soon as he had dried himself, he was back in his room, collapsing on his bed and pulling all the blankets over himself. ‘I just wanna be warm,’ he thought before falling into a deep sleep. 

 

*** 

  

Andi Murakami pushed her textbook aside and reached for the cup of coffee that had long since cooled on the desk beside her. Her eyes drifted across the travel clock she kept on her desk and she said out loud to the empty apartment, “Shit! When did it become 3:30?” 

She stood up and moved to the window, looking down from the fourth floor at cars passing on 86th Street, going god-knew-where in the middle of the night. In four and a half hours, she had to be at the clinic, doing preliminary interviews on psych patients. If she had known — really known — that doing her graduate work in Psychology at Columbia was going to be like carrying two full-time jobs, she probably would have opted for working retail in the mall back in Skokie like her less ambitious friends, the ones who didn’t seem to mind disappointing their middle-class parents. 

_Go to bed_ , she told herself, but instead she moved to the laptop that, wisely, had put itself to sleep at this absurd hour. She wiggled the mouse and brought the machine back to life. Clicking the well-used bookmark, she logged into the chatroom on Staying2gether.net to see what was happening. And, just as in the tiny studio she occupied for a ridiculous New York rent, she was alone in the chatroom, too. She thought, not for the first time, that maybe it was time to close down the site. She had no time to maintain it or fix the links and she was sure that other people could put more energy and enthusiasm into the project than she could. 

But, still, the stats showed that she got hits and if she was helping someone she supposed it was worth continuing. But it was hard for her to do anything except with 100% commitment. She got up and rinsed her mug and moved to the bathroom to wash up for bed. Wandering back to the computer as she brushed her teeth methodically, she saw another name appear under hers on the list: ‘StoneCold’. 

Sitting down, the toothbrush dangling from her mouth, she began to type. 

_[beenthere] 3:36 am > hi_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:36 am > hi_  
 _[beenthere] 3:36 am > pretty late. I’m studying. What’s ur excuse?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:37 am > had a bad dream. Are you the guy? The one who made this site?_  
 _[beenthere] 3:37 am > yes. You been here before? I think I’ve seen your nick_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:38 am > y. Its really good. I have friends here._  
 _[beenthere] 3:38 am > I’m Andi. I’m glad u find the site useful. It helped me a lot to build it_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:39 am > Andi? Isn’t that the girl spelling?_  
 _[beenthere] 3:39 am > That’s because I’m a girl. Hold on, I’m dripping toothpaste on the keyboard. brb_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:39 am > k_  
 _[beenthere] 3:41 am > back. You thought I was a guy?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:41 am > that’s what I heard from people. So your parents divorced?_  
 _[beenthere] 3:42 am > Been five years now. I used to have a lot of bad dreams too_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:43 am > its not about that. Well partly I gues_  
 _[beenthere] 3:43 am > want to tell me?_  
 _[beenthere] 3:44 am > you don’t have to_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:45 am > I’m Bobby._  
 _[beenthere] 3:45 am > hi Bobby._  
 _[StoneCold] 3:46 am > it’s bad. I don’t think u want 2 know._  
 _[beenthere] 3:46 am > whatever u want to say I want to hear. Remember, I don’t know who you are or where you are or anything._  
 _[StoneCold] 3:47 am > you could log IPs_  
 _[beenthere] 3:48 am > lol. I don’t even know what that means. Listen, it’s up to you. I could even meet you back here another time if you want to think about it _  
_[StoneCold] 3:48 am > I think im a mutant_

Andi dropped her hands from the keys and straightened up. _Shit_ , she thought, _I skipped that guest seminar on mutant teens last month_. She felt suddenly scared by her lack of knowledge, scared that she wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to talk to a mutant. Then she mentally kicked herself. This wasn’t a science-fiction phone call from another planet. This was some kid who came to _her_ site looking for help. She took a deep breath and typed. 

_[beenthere] 3:50 am > ok. When did you find out?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:50 am > today. thought I lost u. it’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it. Its not divorce, I know._  
 _[beenthere] 3:51 am > forget about that. Bobby, are you safe?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:51 am > I don’t want to hurt anyone!_  
 _[beenthere] 3:52 am > I mean are you in danger?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:52 am > no. I don’t think so._  
 _[StoneCold] 3:53 am > Im scared. No one I can tell. Don’t want them to send me away_  
 _[beenthere] 3:54 am > is it obvious? Can people tell ur a mutant by looking?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:54 am > no_  
 _[beenthere] 3:54 am > are you 16 yet?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:55 am > 15_  
 _[beenthere] 3:56 am > I’ll be honest. I don’t know of any services for mutant teens and I don’t know about where you stand legally. but I’m going to find out first thing tomorrow. I know there’s a lot of fear about mutants now and I don’t want you to get hurt. Can I meet you back here some time tomorrow? If others are in the chat I can send you a private message and we can make a room to talk. Will you meet me here? _  
_[StoneCold] 3:57 am > after school._  
 _[beenthere] 3:57 am > okay, how about 4:30?_  
 _[StoneCold] 3:58 am > k. Andi, thank you._  
 _[beenthere] 3:58 am > I want to help. Don’t tell anyone else before u talk to me._  
 _[StoneCold] 3:59 am > k. I can’t believe you want to help. u don’t know me. Thank you. Really._  
 _[beenthere] 4:00 am > u don’t know the others in the chatroom but I bet you try to help them._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:00 am > yeah._  
 _[beenthere] 4:01 am > you’ll be ok. 4:30 pm tomorrow. Do u want to talk more now?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:01 am > tired_  
 _[beenthere] 4:01 am > ok. We’ll both go to sleep. Nice to meet you, Bobby_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:02 am > u 2 Andi. Really. I mean it._  
 _[beenthere] 4:02 am > me 2._  
 _[2gether] > [StoneCold] has left at 4:02 am_

Andi logged off and then shut down her computer. She turned off the desk light and sat in the dark, her mind whirling. _I think my life just got more complicated_ , she thought to herself and sighed. 


	2. I Just Wanna Be Warm

The dream that had woken Bobby up at four in the morning and led indirectly to his online conversation with Andi Murakami had been vivid and rich with horror. 

He had dreamed of a castle in a desolate landscape, a castle that grew and grew as he walked with sickening inevitability toward it. Sometimes the land he crossed was rock — black, jagged, volcanic — and sometimes it was worn linoleum like the floor of the laundry room or the halls of a rundown mall. And the castle’s composition changed, too, first appearing to be chalky stone and then, as he got closer, dark, almost purple ice. Bobby somehow understood that the castle was like the one in Disney World… a gateway between worlds with portcullises on the entries, front and back. His mission, he knew, was to get through the imposing building without being caught and to safely reach the other side. But he realized that in the stark landscape, there was no way to hide his approach. He looked desperately around himself for predators, for hunters, for the master of the castle who must not see him. 

Looking back the way he had come, he saw his mother in the distance, at the bus stop where she had dropped him off, still waving. He turned from her, ashamed that whatever inter-dimensional, malevolent force was looking for him would see that he still needed his mommy to drive him to the bus. 

The castle loomed above him now and the wind howled and clutched at him, bringing with it a cold that made his breath visible. He heard something. Not a call exactly, certainly not his name, but he whipped his head upwards to the source — a silhouetted figure in the highest tower, moonlight glinting off his shaved head, his eyes immense glowing holes suspended in the shadowed face. Bobby could tell the figure was looking for him and he quickened his pace, running across the bridge and into the belly of the keep. 

He groped his way forward in the dark, looking for the light of the exit door. From the shadows, he heard the growling and he wheeled around to see the beast. It was like an immense dog, but with most of its fur and much of its skin peeled back to reveal red, raw muscle that tensed and rolled as the beast stalked him. The dog-thing was stiff with ice and worked its great fanged jaws with a groan and a crack. On one red flank he could see a grocery sticker with a price per pound and a “best before” date. 

The beast moved relentlessly towards him through the frosty air. 

In the hours after he “met” Andi Murakami, the dream returned, though it never again coalesced completely, just fragments of color and sound and a sense of primal menace that made his sleep uneasy. He awoke in confusion and the world filtered into his senses piece by piece… strong morning light through the curtains, the smells of coffee and burned toast; and then the stiffness in his body, the pain in his side and hand. He rose up on his elbows and checked the time. It was 11:30 in the morning. He heard someone going by his room in the hall and called out. 

“Mom?” He heard her backtrack and open his door. 

“Good morning, Bobby honey.” 

“Mom, why didn’t you wake me up for school?” 

She seemed almost embarrassed as she answered, “Oh, Bobby, you had such… such a bad night. Your father thought maybe you should sleep it off a bit.” 

Bobby squeezed his eyes shut and his pulse quickened. Images coursed through his brain with uncanny intensity — the slap, the ice, Trixie’s teeth, her convulsions, her stillness. The green girl. He opened his eyes to see his mother staring at him. What was that expression? Pity? Fear? Had Mrs. Kincaid been over to tell his mother that her mutant son had killed their dog? No, then everything would be worse. His father would be here. The police maybe. 

His mother broke the sudden staring match, looking away as if embarrassed. “And, of course, I agreed!” she went on, loudly. “You weren’t yourself last night. And… and of course you were sick, too.” She looked away from him and started straightening the things on his dresser into meaningless order. “Don’t worry; I called the school to let them know you’d be absent.” 

“That’s great, Mom,” he said, willing anger to fill him and push out the shame. He pulled back his covers and jumped out of bed in his boxers and t-shirt. “I’ll just, I dunno, _guess_ about the stuff I missed in class. I’ll just fake that stuff on the exam!” With tense, staccato movements, he began quickly pulling on his clothes and assembling his schoolbooks, stuffing them angrily into his backpack while they carefully avoided each others’ eyes. He left the room and ran down the stairs. 

She appeared on the second floor landing, looking down at him as he sat on the floor of the foyer tying his high-tops. “Bobby, really you should stay home and rest. Your father and I were talking and…” 

“That’s great, Mom. I’m glad you were _talking_ but I have to go, okay?” He pulled on a blue windbreaker and picked up his skateboard from the corner. “Why won’t you let me make my own decisions? You think you’re helping all the time but you’re not!” He slammed the front door behind him and ran, jumping onto his board and pushing away. Pushing away from the scene of the crime. Pushing away from the memories which seemed to chase him down the sidewalks like a pack of rabid dogs.

 

*** 

  

“So, if I’m a 15-year-old mutant who calls the hotline or shows up at the drop-in, you’re saying you have nothing for me?” Andi’s only real surprise, as she sat with the Raheem Freeman, Assistant Director of Youth Outreach Services at the Midtown Community Center, was that she was getting so aggravated. After all, who was she to suddenly take up the cause of a bunch of kids she had never met nor even thought about until last night when a putative teenage mutant named Bobby had dropped out of the digital sky into her life? 

“No, I’m saying I would have a whole range of services and programs for you around sexuality, drug use, peer mentoring, etc.,” said the tired-looking young man running a hand through his dreadlocks, “but nothing specifically for you if you were a new mutant. Andi, this whole probl… I mean _phenomenon_ has just hit us, and hit us during another round of cutbacks. And the problems are not just our lack of understanding around the social service and health needs of mutant youth; there are legal ramifications, insurance worries…” 

“Insurance?!” exclaimed Andi. 

“Look. Let’s say you have a mutant who, I don’t know, turns brick to paste. How are we going to handle injuries or damage related to something that happens with him or her during a counseling session?” 

“That’s preposterous!” The more this went on, the more Andi was growing exasperated on behalf of the kids she was beginning to think of as her new constituency. _Watch it_ , she warned herself. _You are five months into research for a major paper on the effects of divorce on social comfort in school._ “Look, Mr. Freeman — Raheem — how can you start with this much paranoia before you’ve even begun to help?” 

“Because, Andi, it’s not _my_ paranoia. It’s coming from the Board who are reading it in the Post and it’s coming from the lawyers who don’t want more trouble with Homeland Security!” 

“Homeland Se…?” Her eyes grew wide and her tongue twisted into a Gordian knot of confusion. Raheem had clearly said something he regretted because he dropped his head into his hands and then looked around nervously before getting up and quietly closing the door of the office. He sat again among the jungle of paperwork and un-filed social science magazines. 

“It was a big mess and it began last September. Anything I tell you, you are not to repeat. But I need you to understand what you’re getting yourself involved in.” He ran his fingers through his dreads and sighed. “The boy started showing up during the after school drop-ins. He didn’t really fit in; we have a lot of kids here who are one step away from the street. This kid was, well, even preppy didn’t describe it. He was scrubbed clean and buttoned down. He told us that he couldn’t let his parents know about him and we figured he was another gay kid from a religious family. We knew we’d be able to deal with that when he was finally ready to tell us.” He paused and looked out the window, as if he could see something through the haze of dirt and pigeon droppings. 

“We were growing concerned; he was getting more scared every time he came around and saying he couldn’t control it. And then one day, while he was sitting watching the TV downstairs with the other kids, in come the parents. Well, we were right about the religious part, anyway. The Director tried to calm things down with a meeting in her office. The parents threatened the child with banishment and the City with a lawsuit. And then, when things got really bad, well…” And Jones just shut up, looking down at his lap. 

“Please, Raheem,” Andi realized she hadn’t been breathing, “Please go on.” 

“The Director said it was like a light. But that it also had a sound to it. Like a scream maybe. She-she doesn’t remember the events clearly. But then the parents were, um, in comas. There was blood coming from their ears and mouths and… Police were on the scene and paramedics, and then somehow things got kicked upstairs really quickly and, um, the kid was taken away.” He looked up at Andi with a terrible guilt in his eyes. “We tried to find out what happened to him! Our lawyer has taken it higher and higher, but they’re all talking national security and privileged files and we’re getting nowhere!” 

He started drumming his fingers on the pile of reports by his chair. “So yeah, Homeland Security. We have to report all details on any mutant clients… and we won’t do that because it violates our privacy policies. So for now, as far as mutant kids go, it’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. I’m sorry.” 

Andi didn’t know what to say, she was shaking with fury, she realized. “And that’s it? A group of children in need, a new minority, and the City of New York says ‘screw you’? Do you know how scared they must be?” She had risen from her chair and was pacing the small room in tight circles. “They suddenly have these — these _abilities_! They’re suddenly aliens in their own family! They’re afraid they’re going to hurt someone and we aren’t rushing to help!” She had cornered Raheem. “That’s criminal! That’s a complete abrogation of our —” 

“Don’t you think I know that?” He shouted back, rising to face her. “Our hands are tied!” He sat again and gestured for her to do the same. 

“But isn’t anyone doing _anything_? I have a kid in need! I told him I’d help. _Today!_ ” She realized her tone had gone whiny and, embarrassed, she took her seat and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. 

Raheem reached forward and put a hand on hers. “There’s a clinic in Poughkeepsie: private, expensive. Run by a Doctor Christian Turcott. They say if you send your mutant kid there, they will help him or her control their powers; suppress them, maybe. I don’t know if I trust them. They got their program together awfully quickly. The pamphlets are slick as hell but short on details so I don’t know…” 

“Turcott, okay. Is there anything else? Anyone you do trust?” 

“Maybe. His name is Charles Xavier. He used to teach in your department at Columbia; back in the 70s or 80s, I think. He’s been talking to various levels of government about mutants and their problems, their rights. He’s keeping it pretty backdoor now, but his name is getting around. Maybe you could talk to him?” 

“Okay. Xavier. Someone at the Department must have a contact number. Raheem, I’m sorry I blew up. I just want to help this kid.” 

“I know. Don’t worry, some of the worst arguments we have here at the  
Center are because we all want to help more. But sometimes we have to make the decisions that will benefit the largest number of clients. _Realpolitik_.” 

“Well, someone’s got to take care of the others.” Andi said with determination. 

Raheem smiled a little at that. “Ah, a Crusader! A lot of us start as Crusaders, Andi. Let’s hope the system doesn’t wear your grit off too quickly.” 

 

*** 

  

Bobby ran into the cafeteria at 12:15, navigating the chaos-made-flesh-and-grease of the cavernous space. He found Mike Haddad sitting with Paul Greenstein and assorted other boys up in the corner by the stage. He noticed, not for the first time, the way that Mike had become the _de facto_ center of the group. The other boys threw sideways glances at Mike when they said something they thought was especially clever or uniquely repulsive to see if he approved. Whenever a plan was hatched, there was a space made for his final word. So when Bobby squeezed himself into a place across from Mike and Mike stopped his conversation to smile and greet him, it made him feel, well, special. 

“Hey, Bobby.” Mike said with a nod. 

Greenstein gave Bobby a punch on the shoulder and shouted over the cafeteria din, “They said you were sick today. Your mom called and everything.” 

“I’m feeling better,” Bobby replied, stealing a ketchup-soaked fry from Greenstein’s plate. “So I came in.” 

Greenstein looked incredulous. “But your mom gave you a ‘get out of jail free card’ for the whole day, fool! Why bother getting out of bed?” 

Bobby looked away sheepishly and said, “I told you guys yesterday that I’d have lunch with you today. So, um, here I am.” He looked up at Mike who looked him right in the eye and smiled. Bobby straightened and shot back at Greenstein, “There’s more to life than jacking off in bed all day!” 

“News to me,” snorted Greenstein and shoved a fistful of bright red fry mash into his gaping mouth. 

“Bobby, let’s get out of here. I gotta talk to you about something,” said Mike rising from the bench and picking up his empty lunch tray. Bobby grabbed his backpack and followed. 

“Hey, Haddad,” shouted Greenstein, his lips red with ketchup, “You were gonna lend me your math notes!” 

“I already put them in your binder, Paul,” Mike said. “And I want them back at 3:30!” 

“Whatever,” mumbled Greenstein by way of thanks. 

Bobby stopped at the cafeteria line to buy a generic white-bread and  
cellophane tuna sandwich and a bag of chips. He wolfed them down before they had even left the building, like he hadn’t eaten in a week. They walked off the school grounds into the surrounding neighborhood of ordered lawns and little castles. Bobby found himself wondering what dramas were unfolding behind all the anonymous walls with their rose trellises and fresh stucco. Marriages were falling apart, kids were shooting up heroin, hatreds and disappointments were multiplying; all under a veneer of vacant smiles and the latest designer homilies. 

They were walking in silence, enjoying the sunshine after the relentless rain of the last few days. But despite the return of spring, Bobby found himself replaying the terrible events of the previous night in his head. It didn’t seem real… the hysterics of his family, the horror of the ice, Andi on the chatline and the meeting he was supposed to have with her later that day. He felt his heart pound in his chest. 

_Maybe I’m crazy_ , he thought. _Maybe none of it happened_. But if he could dismiss it all as a horrible nightmare, the one thing he couldn’t dismiss was the feeling of the ice — the way the powerful waves of cold had flowed from him. He knew it was not something outside, or something done to him. It was him. The power had come from him and was part of him. He was the monster in his own nightmare; uncontrollable, deadly… 

“Hey, Drake, heads up!” Mike grabbed a basketball that was lying at the foot of a driveway and made a hard pass to Bobby who woke from his reverie just in time to snag it. Mike took off up the driveway towards the hoop above the garage door and Bobby whooped as he began dribbling up court towards him, fighting for an angle as Mike blocked, both boys intense and laughing. Bobby took his shot and Mike knocked the ball out of the air, retrieving it with a quick spin and sending it aloft for his two points. 

“I’m heading for the NBA, Drake! Don’t get in my way!” Mike crowed as they marched back down the driveway. With a light toss, he threw the ball up into the middle of the lawn so whatever kid lived there wouldn’t lose it. 

“Yeah, right,” returned Bobby, “Like your parents would let you do that instead of med school.” 

“What about you? What do you want to do? You used to be all into Biology; I thought you’d be coming to Yale with me.” 

“Right! I’m not the heir of the wealthy, Haddad. My family can’t afford Yale. Anyway, I don’t know what I… I don’t want to think that far ahead. I just want to survive the year, okay?” They had come to a small park at the end of the street and they climbed up to sit on the flat top of a small, worn monument that had been dedicated to some local hero from the Korean War. 

“I’m worried about you, man.” Mike said seriously, fixing Bobby with too much intensity. 

Bobby threw his hand across his forehead in a melodramatic gesture and declaimed in falsetto, “Oh! I’m worried about you, Bobby! Ever since the war, you haven’t been the same!” 

“Stop it, Drake,” said Mike and Bobby deflated a bit. “You can hide out from your other friends all you like, but I know what’s up with you. If your lame-ass parents want to kill each other, they don’t need to bring you down, too.” 

“Shut up,” Bobby said, but there was no power behind the words. They sat in silence, their feet swinging a bit before he continued. “I kept believing that things were gonna get better, Mike. That they were gonna — fuck — be okay again. But it’s getting worse. Shit’s happening. Bad shit. And I don’t think it’ll ever get better. I’m doomed, man.” 

He realized he was on the verge of tears, on the verge of saying things that even Mike wouldn’t forgive. And he couldn’t afford to lose everything and everyone now. So he punctured the dangerous mood of compassion and confession with the other half of the melodrama. Raising a manly fist across his chest, he lowered his voice and boomed, “I’m doomed, Dolores! The Drake family is cursed unto the seventh generation!” 

Mike laughed and said, “So, listen, I want to ask you something. My parents are going to Beirut for three weeks for their business. You wanna come live at my place? Get away from your folks for a while?” 

“What? No, I-I’m okay! I don’t need you to —” 

“It’s not just for you. My mom thinks I shouldn’t be alone that whole time. She thinks I’ll be lonely and shit. And if you were there, we could study for exams together.” 

“Your mom wants two 15-year-old boys tearing up her house while they’re away?” Bobby was getting excited despite his worries; the idea of not hearing the fights anymore, of not dealing with his parents was like a dream. “Doesn’t she know our generation can’t be trusted? We’re, like, drug addicts and pimps and everything!” 

“I know! Rap music has polluted our virtue. Our parents stayed pure by only listening to Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond.” Mike laughed, “Don’t worry, we’ll be under the stern eye of The Dark Lord, Angelica!” The image of the Haddads’ short, sunny Filipina housekeeper as a kind of Darth Vader cracked Bobby up. 

“You’re serious? Your mom wants me to stay over?” He hated to sound so excited and uncool, but it was really pretty awesome. 

“Yeah, and if you say yes, she’ll call your mom and discuss it. So what do you say? Yes?” 

Bobby thought, _maybe it won’t happen again. I don’t feel the hot and cold waves today. Maybe that was it! One time and I got it out of my system._ “Well, if my mom says it’s okay…” 

“Awesome! Hey, it’s almost two, we gotta get to Spanish!” He jumped off the monument with a war-cry and broke into a run across the parkette, shouting: “ _¿Excúseme, señor, es esta su berenjena?_ ” 

“ _No, mi berenjena es más grande que éste,_ ” yelled back Bobby as he also launched himself into the air and ran after his friend, feeling hope for the first time in weeks. 

 

*** 

  

“Hello?” The man who answered the phone sounded young to Andi, but there was something intimidating about his voice, as if everyone who phoned was an annoyance. Or maybe she was just projecting her own doubt about this call. Maybe she was encountering her own fear and prejudice as she got closer to the world of mutants. 

“Um, yes, I’d like to speak to Doctor Charles Xavier, if I could.” 

“The Professor is very busy today. What is it you want to discuss with him?” 

Clearly the young man was a guard-dog whom she would have to appease if she were to get to Xavier. She wondered why a retired psychology professor would be thus guarded. “My name is Andi Murakami. I’m a graduate student in the Psychology Department at Columbia. Professor Bernstein at the school gave me Dr. Xavier’s number. They were colleagues for many years. I’m doing research in the area of mutant youth and I understand he’s one of the world’s great experts on the subject.” _Sound confident, drop names and sprinkle with flattery_ , she thought. _The recipe for successful schmoozing_. 

There was a pause as the guard-dog chewed this over. “One moment please, I’ll see if the professor is available.” 

Andi heard the phone put down on a table top and the sound of feet receding. _No hold button. It’s not an office,_ she thought. After a couple of minutes, she heard a click and a warm, confident voice said, “Thank you, Scott. I’ve got it in here.” There was a further clunk as the other extension was hung up and the — no other word for it — professorial voice continued, “This is Charles Xavier, how may I help you?” 

“Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, Professor. My name is Andi Murakami. I’m a graduate student in psychology at Columbia and I have… um, I’m in need of some advice. About mutants.” She paused. It was amazing how fraught the word “mutant” suddenly felt. Under other circumstances, she could be triggering people into a sudden onslaught of ill-considered, prejudiced ranting. But to someone who knew mutants well or — now here was a thought — actually was a mutant, might she be saying something unwittingly insulting? Was there already a more socially compassionate term she didn’t know that she should be using? 

“Go on, Ms. Murakami,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, adopting a tone of calm interest that she already recognized as that of the trained psychologist. 

“I-I run an Internet chatroom for teens in divorcing families. Last night, I got into a chat with a 15-year-old who told me he was… he _thought_ he was a mutant. He indicated that he had no one to tell and that he was scared he would be discovered. He was worried about the consequences to him, perhaps from his family.” She realized she was relieved to be sharing this burden with someone else. The feeling of isolated impotence had been an unaccustomed and uncomfortable one for her. “I told him I would chat with him again today; actually in about an hour. I–I promised him I’d have some answers for him. Professor, what can I tell him?” 

“First of all, Andi, regarding whether he is or is not a mutant: in my experience, few people make a mistake about such an integral piece of identity, so let’s go forward on the assumption that he has, indeed manifested a mutation. We are in the early days of public understanding that there is indeed a small segment of the population who are mutants and the reaction on the street is mostly one of fear and misinformation. 

“Your young man will likely have heard this misinformation rather than clear facts. He will have heard that mutants are a threat and a danger to those around them. He will perhaps have heard some of the worst lies: that mutants, in addition to possessing varied, often considerable powers, also lack a fundamental humanity. There are those who are saying they are born into human families but, like cuckoos or, more mythically, changelings, do not belong to those families and cannot be trusted.” 

Andi had heard such thoughts coming from more reactionary news sources and had ignored them the way she ignored inflammatory anti-immigrant ravings, but she suddenly intuited just how the rise of a mutant population could be greeted by a scared, under-educated populace. “What do the Religious Right have to say, Professor?” 

“There is no unified answer coming from the various fundamentalist camps, but some see the hand of the Devil in the birth of mutant children and some equate mutant powers with possession. It is a very volatile situation that some children are manifesting into. What do you know about your client?” 

“Oh, he’s not my…” but, she supposed that Bobby was now, indeed her client. “Very little, I suppose. He seems bright. You can tell surprisingly quickly in chat who is more or less literate and he seems to be well-educated and intellectually engaged.” 

“And you said he’s from the Boston area?” Xavier inquired. 

“Boston? No, I didn’t say —” 

“No, no! Of course not. I was — thinking about something else, I’m sorry.” He seemed flustered for a minute. “I don’t have much to offer you, I regret. I have been encouraging various social agencies at the federal, state and municipal levels to begin preparing for the needs of this population. But I’ve had to tread carefully. If I’m not careful to whom I speak, my words just serve to inflame rather than inform. My worst fear is that I inadvertently create the environment for political opportunism. I meet the politician to encourage support for mutants and leave having made them a new enemy.” 

Andi felt a wave of hopelessness “So, what do I tell my client?” 

Xavier, perhaps sensing he had dampened her spirit, brightened his tone: “Now, don’t think nothing is happening. Some forward-thinking agencies are creating peer-support groups for mutants in centers large enough to have a meaningful population. We don’t actually know how many mutants there are, but even in a city the size of New York, we believe there may be fewer than 100 young mutants. Unfortunately, even in such relatively enlightened districts, there is institutional fear within the social service sector.” 

“So I discovered,” Andi said ruefully. 

Xavier continued, his voice intensifying. “What we need is enthusiastic young professionals and academics like you making their voices heard.” 

“Me? No, Professor, my research is into effects of divorce on youth… I’ve devoted the past year to —” 

“Yes, yes, and I’m sure you’ve done good work in a well-trodden field, Ms. Murakami… Andi. But stop and think for a moment. The psychology and  
sociology of mutants is new ground. If one acted quickly, one could make quite a name for him or herself.” 

Andi fell silent. She suddenly saw a vision of published papers, of speaking appearances. The word “Doctor” flared suddenly in front of her name as she was introduced to an audience who were drawn to the conference out of curiosity and, perhaps, a sense of currency, urgency, to hear what they could from an expert in a vital new field… She returned abruptly to the here and now, shaking her head to clear the siren-like visions. _The crafty old bastard_ , she thought, _he did that on purpose; appealed to my vanity._ But she had to admit, there was truth in his words. The ambitious part of her felt opportunity beckoning. 

She spoke up at last and realized he had been waiting patiently for her to do so. “Professor, I’d like to meet you, if I may. To discuss further options… for my client.” 

“Gladly, Andi,” the calm voice replied and she could feel his smile through the phone. “Andi, about this client. You said you felt he was bright. I am, as it  
happens, starting up a preparatory school for mutants in the Fall. Enrollment will be extremely limited at first. I would be interested in speaking to this young man, if he would agree to it, to see if he would be an acceptable candidate.” 

“Oh. Wow. Um, I’ll mention it to him.” She smiled; now she actually had some hope to offer Bobby. 

“Actually, I need to ask for some discretion on your part. I plan to keep a low profile for this school. I do not need protest or worse to interfere with the lives of these students. Andi, I feel I can trust you on this matter. Tell your client that I wish to speak with him, if possible, but not about what.” 

“I understand, sir. Thank you for your help.” 

“Not at all. It is I who am looking forward to meeting you. Ms. Murakami, we have much work to do! Good day.” And without waiting for her reply, he abruptly hung up. 

Andi stood holding the phone, feeling full of hope and a sense of mission. Then the phone beeped angrily at her, demanding to be re-cradled. Startled, she put it down and only then said to herself, _Hey, wait a minute! I’ve just been recruited!_

 

*** 

 

At 4:10, Bobby turned the key to the lock and right away felt his stomach lurch. _Great_ , he thought, _I’m allergic to my own house now_. Maybe no one was home. Maybe he could get in and up to his room without having to actually talk to any of the Drakes. But his hopes were dashed by a voice from living room. 

“Bobby? Hi, honey, I’m in here!” 

He didn’t answer and instead of turning right into the living room, went straight ahead to the kitchen. His stomach, he realized, was telling him to eat more. Despite the lunch he had consumed, despite the bag of chips on the way out of school, he found himself loading up a plate with a cold chicken wing from the fridge, an apple, a pile of crackers and two cheese sticks. _Weird_ , he thought absently. He began devouring the apple greedily as he slouched into the living room where his mother sat at the antique writing desk that looked out onto the garden. She smiled brightly in a way he didn’t want to see at the moment. 

“My God, you’d think you were starving to death,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you have lunch?” 

“Just hungry, mom,” he replied cooly as he noticed the textbooks and stapled stacks spread out before her. Her real estate license. She was still studying for that damn thing. 

“Mom, did you get a phone call?” he asked. 

“What do you mean, Bobby? From the school?” 

“No, never mind. I’ve gotta go study.” He turned from her, no doubt leaving her confused and worried, but she was _always_ confused and worried. And he just didn’t feel like bringing up Mike’s offer until he had to. What if she had a million questions for him? What if she didn’t want him to go? 

Up in his room, Bobby found himself sinking deeper into fury. The fucking real estate license! He hated his mother for her careful preparations and selfish dreams. _She’s still married and she’s already planning her new little life_. He could see a picture of her in his mind as the energetic, single working mom, trotting out him and Ronny to show off to clients. _“My husband left us and look how well I’m doing! I’m Supermom!”_ It made him sick. Bobby took a kind of cruel satisfaction in imagining that moment in front of the client when he would calmly say, ‘I’m a mutant, did you know that?’ and how his mother would blanch and run away crying. 

Mutant. It was the first time all day he’d even let the word cross his mind. Bobby’s brain seemed to stop for a moment — to skip a beat and stutter liked a scratched CD before it found its mark again on a different track altogether. 

_But I’m not a mutant_ , he calmly explained to himself, sitting at his computer, calling up a Flash game where he had to round-up green, bug-like creatures into a holding pen and incinerate them before they could escape and spread. _I’m definitely not._

_So what happened last night?_ responded a rational corner of his brain. But Bobby was ready for just that kind of question. _Who knows exactly? But it was probably some kind of cosmic phenomenon. Or a weather anomaly maybe? Yes! A freak ice storm in April. Caused by global warming. And if I think I caused it, I must be some kind of lunatic egomaniac. What if said I caused the tsunami in the Pacific, too? That’d be crazy, right?_

He blasted two or three of the bugs with his cattle prod weapon as they tried to break free. The time was 4:37. Every minute that had passed since 4:30 had been an agony of guilt. He could _feel_ Andi waiting for him somewhere in cyberland. But what was he going to tell her after she spent all day researching mutants for him? He wasn’t a mutant! It wasn’t his fault. 

He lost his concentration and the bugs took over, filling the screen and chirping hostilely at him as they danced their alien victory dance. 

“Shit!” he shouted at the screen and typed the URL with angry keystrokes. The Staying 2Gether chat interface opened before him like an accusation. He checked to see who was logged in: DarkPrincess, gundamboy and, yes, beenthere, Andi’s nickname. He felt his heart racing and his underarms sweating up. _This is stupid! Just tell her it was a mistake!_

_Welcome! You have entered [2gether] at 4:39 pm_  
 _[2gether]: StoneCold has entered at 4:39 pm_  
 _[beenthere] 4:39 pm > so how does he talk about your mom when you stay with him?_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 4:40 pm > nuthing bad. just kind of growls a lot._  
 _[gundamboy] 4:41 pm > Stone! beenthere is here. he’s looking 4 u._  
 _[beenthere] 4:41 pm > Hi stonecold_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 4:41 pm > hey stone_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:42 pm > She. beenthere’s a girl. woman. right?_  
 _[beenthere] 4:43 pm > right. u guys mind? stone and i have some business_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:43 pm > Stone, gina was on forevr looking 4 u. shes all_  
worryed and shit.  
 _[beenthere] 4:44 pm > i’ll send him right back 2 u, gundamboy. Stonecold, i’ll exit and create a room for us. then you type “<enter coldroom>”, ok? _  
_[StoneCold] 4:45 pm > ok_  
 _[2gether] > [beenthere] has left at 4:45 pm_  
 _[DarkPrincess] 4:46 pm > evrything cool, StoneCold?_  
 _[gundamboy] 4:46 pm > u dating beenthere?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:47 pm > it’s nothing guys. just talk. tell gina i’m ok, gundam_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:47 pm > <enter coldroom>_  
 _[2gether] > [StoneCold] has left at 4:45 pm_  
 _Welcome! You have entered [coldroom] at 4:45 pm_  
 _[coldroom]: StoneCold has entered at 4:45 pm_  
 _[beenthere] 4:47 pm > you made it!_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:48 pm > nice place you got here. u decorate yourself?_  
 _[beenthere] 4:49 pm > LOL. u like the lava lamps?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:49 pm > nice._  
 _[beenthere] 4:50 pm > I’ve had a very interesting day, Bobby. Learning a lot about mutants_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:50 pm > Listen. I have something to tell u_  
 _[beenthere] 4:51 pm > But I don’t have all the answers for u yet. I’m sorry_  
 _[beenthere] 4:51 pm > what. what do u want to tell me?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:52 pm > I think I made a mistake. I’m not a mutant, Andi_  
 _[beenthere] 4:52 pm > are you saying you made up what you told me, Bobby?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:53 pm > No! I was confused. Some bad stuff happened. Fight with the family and I was attacked by this dog. There was a freak ice storm. _  
_[beenthere] 4:54 pm > Ice storm in late April? Are you up north? Northern Canada?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:54 pm > look. I’m really really sorry I wasted your time but I’m just not. A mutant. That’s good news isn’t it?_  
 _[beenthere] 4:55 pm > Bobby, it just sounds strange. Are you sure?_  
 _[StoneCold] 4:56 pm > I guess i would know, wouldn’t I?! Thank you really for all your help but I have a lot to sort out now. Maybe you can help some other mutant kids with this information. It must really suck to be like that. But I’m not, Andi. _  
_[beenthere] 4:57 pm > Bobby, I’m going to give you my e-mail address. If you need my help, I want you to use it._  
 _[StoneCold] 4:57 pm > I don’t. don’t need your help.  
_ _[beenthere] 4:58 pm > Please write it down, Bobby. andimura@gmail.com Have you got it?  
_ _[StoneCold] 4:58 pm > yes. wrote it down. but I don’t need it  
_ _[beenthere] 4:59 pm > then just say hi some time. You seem like a nice guy.  
_ _[StoneCold] 5:00 pm > I gotta go.  
_ _[coldroom] > [StoneCold] has left at 5:00 pm_

Bobby leaned back hard in the chair, making the springs squeak ominously. _Fuck her!_ he thought. _Why don’t adults ever believe me?_ He scrunched up his eyes and punched his shoulder to keep himself angry, to stop himself from crying like a kid. _Everything is working out great! I don’t need anyone’s help!_

Watching the screen, he saw that Gina had entered 2gether. That annoyed him, too. He didn’t want anyone else worried about him. It felt like the whole world was conspiring to make his life into a Degrassi episode. If his parents divorced, they divorced. It happened all the time to kids. If he was failing at school, he just had to get back to work. Stop whining. With a bit of hard work, he could be a top student like Mike and join him at Yale on a scholarship. He imagined them together in a dorm with really cool posters on the wall, going to see concerts and hanging out at campus pubs. Two desks, two beds, best buddies forever. He felt himself getting a boner and put a hand down the front of his pants, holding himself, feeling his confidence returning. 

“Bobby?” his mother said quietly from the other side of the door, giving two short knocks before she turned the doorknob. Bobby pulled his hand out of his pants and untucked his shirt so it would cover his bulge. He heard her come in behind him. 

“Hi, Mom,” he said with forced cheer, opening up a word-processing window. “I’m just getting an English essay going.” 

“That’s good, honey. Bobby, I just got a call from Barbara Haddad. She said you and Mike had talked about you going to stay at their place for a while. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I forgot, Mom. He asked me today. If you don’t want me to, it’s okay.” 

“No, no, I think it’s an excellent idea! We all have so much to think about these days, don’t we? And maybe if you were away a bit…” 

Bobby was suddenly very unsure. He looked into her face and all he could see was a succession of masks. Did she want him to go? Maybe she thought he was the problem in the family. Maybe she knew he was a… but he wasn’t! He looked at her again, but her mind had already wandered off. _Look at that_ , he thought. _She doesn’t care. She barely knows I exist half the time!_

“Oh Bobby,” she suddenly blurted out. “You know the Kincaid’s dog, Trixie? The poor thing seems to have had a heart attack last night! They found her dead by the pool when they woke up this morning. Why, she wasn’t more than four years old! Life is just so… so arbitrary, you know?” 

Bobby stiffened. _I didn’t kill her_ , he thought instantly. _It was an ice storm and the dog died of a heart attack! Purebred dogs have congenital conditions sometimes._ But it was all too vivid, here in this room, here in this house. He would get away and start that new life he was thinking about. 

“I’m gonna do it, Mom. I’m going to stay with Mike. It’s just for a couple of weeks, right? You’ll be okay, right?” 

“Me? Of course, honey! You do what’s right for you! Don’t worry about us.” She was staring at him suddenly with a kind of intensity he found humiliating. Her eyes were large and moist. “Oh, look what an old sap your mom is! I’m tearing up about that silly dog.” She abruptly turned away, straightening her sweater. “I’ve got to get dinner ready, Bobby. You work on your English paper. Oh, and tuck your shirt in.” 

 

Mike and his parents were waiting in the Drakes’ driveway, their Lexus idling quietly as Madeline checked that Bobby had all of his bags, like he was departing on a space shuttle mission instead of moving two miles away for three weeks. 

“Mom, if I’m missing anything you’ll drive it over! Or I’ll borrow whatever from Mike.” 

“Bobby, you listen to me!” She said, straightening his windbreaker on him. “I do not want to hear from Mrs. Haddad that you and Mike caused any trouble. That means no friends over without the housekeeper’s permission, no parties. You go to sleep at a reasonable hour and do your homework before watching videos or playing games, is that clear?” She reached up and started patting his curls into place. 

Bobby shielded his head. “Mom, quit it! They’re watching! My hair is fine. And yes, I’ll be a perfect Little Lord Fontleroy!” 

“Oh, Bobby, I’m going to miss you. You and your stubborn, surly mouth!” She laughed. 

“Hey,” Bobby suddenly asked, looking over her shoulder into the house. “Isn’t Ronny coming down?” 

“I don’t think so, Bobby. I think he’s kind of sad that you’re going. But don’t worry, he’ll get over it.” 

Bobby suddenly felt devastated. In all the build-up to his departure, he hadn’t noticed that Ronny wasn’t really talking to him. He waved at the Haddads and called, “Just one sec, okay? Sorry!” before running into the house. 

Ronny was lying on his stomach on his carpeted floor, drawing a dragon with colored pencils in the big newsprint sketchbook their parents had bought him on his birthday last month. He didn’t look up when Bobby came in. 

“Hey, Ronny, I’m going now.” Bobby said from the door. 

“So?” said his brother and kept drawing. 

“I thought you’d come down and say goodbye,” Bobby said, softening his voice. 

“Bye,” said Ronny and made a show of concentrating even harder on his drawing. Bobby squatted on the floor in front of him and put a hand on Ronny’s head. 

“I’ll just be gone for a couple of weeks.” 

“Fine. Just leave me here. I don’t care.” Ronny’s voice was getting tighter and less audible. 

“I’m not leaving you, Ronny,” Bobby said a bit desperately. “Mike _asked_ me to stay with him. His _mom_ asked me!” 

Ronny suddenly looked up at Bobby with an anger the older boy had never seen on his face. “You’re going to just leave me here with them! With him! You don’t care, you’ll be out of the house. You don’t care what happens to me!” and with that he shoved Bobby who lost his balance and rolled back onto his ass. Ronny started crying. “Just go! Your new family is waiting for you!” 

“They’re not my… You’re my… Oh, forget it!” Bobby got to his feet. “I’ve got to go, Ronny, okay? I have no choice. There’s stuff you don’t understand! I can’t be here anymore!” 

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!” Ronny screamed in a voice so high and raw that Bobby got goose bumps. 

From downstairs, he heard his mother calling, “Bobby? Ronny? Is everything okay?” 

Bobby ran past her as she climbed the stairs. She called after him, “He’s upset, Bobby. I’ll talk to him. You better go.” 

He turned at the door and watched her disappear into the upper hall. He then caught sight of his father, standing at the entrance to the living room. The two looked at each other across the foyer, and they might as well have been standing on two buttes in the desert, a mile apart. Neither seemed able to muster the breath it would take to shout across the chasm. Jealousy, anger, loss welled inside Bobby. Without another word, he turned and left the Drake household. 

 

Bobby could have chosen from two guestrooms in the Haddads’ rather palatial home. In fact, they even had a small apartment over their separate three-car garage that stood on the wide curved driveway within the graceful brick walls that enclosed their property. But instead, he took Mike’s offer of the second bed in his room, one that used to be occupied by the older Haddad son who was off at university in Switzerland. 

It was already after 11 on a school night, but the two were excitedly talking in the dark about plot holes in the horror movie they had just watched. 

Bobby felt wide awake, the images of gore and mayhem making him smile. “It got so lame, though — the old cop spying on him all the time. If he thought that guy was the murderer, he would have just arrested him.” 

“No, he couldn’t!” answered Mike, off to his right in the dark. “He was disgraced on the force. They thought he was nuts.” 

Bobby could see strange shapes in the dim light of the large bedroom and tried to figure what each was: computer, printer, skis, dresser. Mike’s aquarium bubbled quietly in the corner and the furnace sounded different than the one at the Drake house. The sheets on the bed were smooth, as opposed to the  
flannels he was used to and they hissed whenever he moved. It was thrilling to be somewhere new! 

“But anyway,” Bobby concluded, “that stuff doesn’t really matter so much. It was a really cool movie.” 

“Oh, I know,” Mike agreed. “The logic of horror movies is the relentless logic of death.” 

Bobby cracked up, “You did not just make that up!” 

Mike sounded wounded, “Did I say I did? It’s from this book I got last week: ‘Memento Mori: the Passions of Horror Films.’ I’ll show it to you tomorrow. Hey, let’s go to sleep; it’s late. I’m glad you’re here, Bobby.” 

Bobby felt buoyant, freer than he had in months. He believed he could handle it all now. His life was going to get better starting tonight. “Me too, Mike. Good night.” 

“Don’t snore, Drake.” 

“Don’t fart, Haddad.” They snickered in the dark. 

 

_The castle stood alone and deserted in the cold world. The wind howled terribly and Bobby could only continue his approach if he stayed low, sheltered by the short brick wall that traversed the wasteland. He looked up nervously at the tower high above, but the bald man was nowhere to be seen. He breathed easier, thinking ‘I can do this!’ when suddenly the man was standing there, not twenty feet away, off to his left. He seemed to emanate a mist that obscured his features, but Bobby recognized the smooth head, the slim build, and most of all the featureless eyes that burned through him with a gaze that saw all his secrets and faults._

_“What do you want?” Bobby asked the still figure whom, he realized was actually floating a few feet off the hard ground. “Why are you here?”_

_“Do not refuse it, Robert,” the figure said. “It is your gift. Accept it or be destroyed by it.”_

_Bobby stammered, at a loss for words. Denials sprung to his lips and died away. He felt ashamed. Suddenly a terrible howling, high, raw and louder than the wind filled the air and he turned towards the castle in time to see the dog-beast galloping towards him with a terrible, almost lustful rage in its eyes, teeth bared, saliva splashing._

_“Quickly,” the floating figure yelled. “You must save yourself! Save us both!”_

_The beast was closing on them, the size of a horse, its raw flanks steaming._

_“How?!” screamed Bobby over the howling wind, “What can I do? I’m just a freshman!”_

_“The ice,” shouted back the bald figure. “Use the ice!!”_

_Bobby turned back to the beast who lowered himself on steely limbs and launched into the air, flying thirty feet up and then turning effortlessly to dive down on Bobby. The boy screamed and raised his hands, the familiar wave of powerful cold leaping from his belly, from this groin, from the deepest parts of him out through his fingers and spraying the beast in icy death even as it closed in for the kill._

_With a terrible roar, the great creature crashed to the ground before him, scattering shards of ice. Bobby turned to the floating man who simply smiled and vanished._

_Bobby looked back at the beast and it was no longer so huge. In fact, as he approached the body, encased in its glassy sheath, it seemed to shrink, to grow pitiful and frail until, at last, as he looked down into its face, he realized it was his brother Ronny he had killed._

 

Bobby sat up in bed, gasping. He panicked, looking around the strange space until he remembered where he was. _You’re okay_ , he told himself. _You’re with Mike. Ronny’s safe at home. It was just a dream._ He was still panting heavily and that’s why he noticed it. His breath. He could see his breath misting in front of him. And on the edge of the blanket, where his hands had been gripping it, a pale sheet of frost glistened in the attenuated night light of the room. 

He felt under the covers and the slippery frost was everywhere, as if his body had sweated ice. And if the horror of this waking dream wasn’t bad enough, he could feel, deep inside, the same horrific, powerful feeling that had that come on last week and grown and grown until it had become the night of the ice, the murder of Trixie. He had tried to deny it but what he felt in the dream was truth. The power was inside him, like a monster in a castle, and it would get out no matter how he tried to stop it. He began to shiver uncontrollably. 

Desperately trying to keep his teeth from chattering and waking Mike, he climbed out of bed. He wrapped the blanket around himself, and tiptoed down to the living room, decorated in a mixture of the colorful orientalism of Lebanon and the stolidity of Upper Middle Class Boston. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked loudly in the still night, showing twenty minutes after four as he crept past it, shaking. He sat in a corner of the immense, satin-draped couch, legs pulled up to his chest and endured the waves of hot and cold that moved through him like torture, wondering what would happen when he lost control again. Wondering who would die this time. 

_I’m a mutant_ , he said to himself. Over and over, _I’m a mutant, a mutant…_

He slept no more that night. 


	3. Here We Go

I _am Charles Xavier,_ he reminded himself whenever he felt his hold on reality slipping, because it was slippery in the world of pure mind. Voices called to him, but when he reached to answer, they seemed to pull away and vanish. And then, when his attention moved elsewhere, they returned to assault him full-force, leaving him reeling, spinning through space that was not space. 

Disciplining his consciousness, he worked to build a coherent conceptual framework in which to view the data (the voices?) in the hope of making the whole paradigm somehow comprehensible. The lights, he decided, were minds; the red lights, mutant minds. And sometimes it worked. He found he could isolate a particular subject in the field of noise and make his way towards it by creating a mental body for himself. He recognized this as a conceit, perhaps a vain one, but it helped him to have a body in all the chaos. He noticed, with wry amusement, that the legs of his simulacrum were working limbs. 

But, as always, keeping control amid the swirling sea of information was frustrating if not impossible. The minds! They were so needy! Or was it just that the needy ones drowned out those who suffered in silence? He felt his “body” disintegrate, the precise map of pinpoint lights dissolve into a sea, and he was suddenly thrown out, through a pre-set mental circuit breaker, into the world of flesh, blood and six senses. 

It felt as if he had landed in his wheelchair from a height. He became keenly aware of the coldness of the room. The helmet weighed on him and he felt how his skin was raw at the right temple where one of the pads had worn thin. He felt old. Removing the helmet slowly, he concentrated on breathing deeply and deliberately to help him lose the feeling of endless falling that, truth be told, still terrified him every time he was engaged with Cerebro. 

_Breathe! Charles,_ he thought. _Be here in this room with all your senses. Sight: my hand on the leather armrest of the chair. Sound: the hum of the air compressors. Smell: metal and grease. Touch: the arthritic ache in my hands. Taste: metal and blood…_

_*Professor? Can I come in?*_ came a clear and familiar voice in his head. 

He responded telepathically, _*Yes, Scott, please do.*_

The heavy steel doors slid open on their hydraulics and Scott Summers moved along the runway, pushing an incongruous antique wooden trolley laden with a china tea set. The Professor leaned on the arm of his chair, head lowered, his heavy breathing echoing in the steel interior of the massive structure. 

“Good God, Professor,” Scott said, coming around to kneel in front of the older man, taking his cold, sweaty hand and feeling for the pulse. “If I had known you were planning to exhaust yourself, I would have stopped you an hour ago. You can’t keep pushing like this. Your pulse is racing. And we have to do something to get more heat in here!” 

“Add it to the to-do list, Scott,” Xavier said weakly, with a tired smile. The young man pulled his phone from his pocket and made a notation. 

Scott gave a crooked smile and said, “Jean would kill us both, you know. And then she would remind your sorry corpse of all the speeches you used to give us about patience back when we were learning to control our powers.” 

“Then we shan’t tell her.” He found himself breathing easier. “I know you’re right to counsel caution, Scott. But it’s so… tantalizing! I have been a telepath since I was 15 and I’ve developed powerful skills. But to suddenly see the possibilities of, perhaps, infinite telepathy, of touching every mind on Earth —” 

“Or burning your brains out in the process.” Scott rose and poured a cup of tea, adding cream and bringing it back to his mentor. Xavier responded to the quotidian ritual and pulled himself upright, taking the proffered cup with restored dignity. 

“They’re out there, Scott, just as Erik said they were. Thousands of mutants living unseen; some of them perhaps not aware of their mutations, others hiding them and hoping no one will notice. I know our school could be an important part of making their lives better!” 

“Well, our school doesn’t exist yet, Professor, and if you’re in a coma, you won’t be much help to them, will you?” Scott poured himself tea, leaving it black, and sipped it in the ensuing silence. “Can we get out of here? This place gives me the creeps.” 

“Does it? I admit to feeling complex emotions for Cerebro, but largely, it represents hope to me. Someday soon, I will have enough control to show you what I am seeing here. And then you’ll know why I try so hard.” He placed the helmet gently on its stand and looked around the cavernous room as if he could still pick out the distant red lights. He sighed and wheeled his chair backwards, turning to follow Scott who was pushing the trolley out into the hall. 

They exited from the sub-basement elevator into the main foyer. Around them, electricians, plumbers and carpenters were coming and going, filling the air with sawdust and noise. They both looked around with satisfaction, momentarily forgetting the long list of technical, administrative and legal details that would soon fill their day with frustration. Instead, they paused and breathed in the dusty air of hope as they watched their dream becoming reality. Then it was time to get to work and together they wheeled across the lobby, leaving twin trails in the sawdust. 

 

*** 

 

Mike Haddad and the Haddads’ housekeeper, Angelica were squeezed like comic spies behind the door jamb of the family room, catching covert glimpses of Bobby. The boy sat shivering, wrapped in a blanket on the couch watching old Seinfeld episodes without smiling, blowing his nose occasionally and adding to the growing mountain of used tissues spilling from the small wastebasket. 

“This is not right, Mikey!” Angelica whispered harshly, wringing the hem of her apron in consternation. “We should be phoning Mrs. Drake and telling her Bobby did not go to school.” 

“No, Angelica, please,” Mike whispered back. “She’ll just make him come home. Let’s see how he feels tomorrow. Okay? Please?” 

“I felt like fool calling the school, saying another woman’s son is not coming. Only for you, Mikey do I make a fool like that!” she said, giving his ear a pinch. He grinned and kissed her cheek. 

“That’s why I love you. Marry me!” he whispered, dropping to one knee. 

She slapped his head. “Go away! Go talk to your friend. I have to make dinner. Here, bring him this.” She pulled a can of cola from her apron pocket and turned to go back to the kitchen. But just before she vanished, she suddenly returned, wagging her finger at him. “Don’t get too close! You should not get sick, Mikey!” 

Mike rose to his feet and sauntered into the family room. “How do you feel, Bobby?” he asked as casually as he could. He put the soda on the coffee table in front of his friend and sat down on the couch, a pillow’s distance away. “You look like shit.” 

“Thanks, Mike,” Bobby replied, eyes on the TV. “That bedside manner will come in handy in ten years… when you’re working at McDonalds.” He sniffled and sighed. 

“So do you think you’re going to be better tomorrow? ’Cause if you aren’t, Angelica’s going to call your mom and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Bobby said nothing, but Mike could see the tension move across his shoulders and jaw. Mike continued gently, as if Bobby was a horse that he didn’t want to spook. “Look, Bobby, if something’s wrong, you can tell me. Even if it’s really bad.” 

Bobby’s teeth suddenly chattered and he clenched his jaw tightly, saying “shit” through his teeth. He turned his face from the screen and looked at Mike for the first time. Mike could see how hard he was working to keep control. But control of what? 

“I’m just sick,” Bobby said tightly. “It’s just a cold or something. But maybe…” Bobby lowered his voice and grew very serious. “Maybe I should sleep in the apartment above the garage tonight. I don’t want you to get hurt… I mean, you know, like get sick…” 

Mike laughed, “Oh my God, Drake, that’s what this is about? You’re a _werewolf!_ Why didn’t you tell me?!” He threw himself against the back of the sofa, guffawing. And then he suddenly stopped. Something in Bobby’s eyes, some terrible pain, some desperation to tell and not tell choked the laughter in his throat. And he knew. He didn’t know how he knew, but he somehow did. The hysterical headlines, the new jokes at school, the change in the air that everyone felt but no one knew how to react to. It was here in his family room. 

“Bobby,” he began slowly, looking into the clear blue eyes. “Are you a mutant?” 

And Bobby broke. The blue eyes blurred and he shuddered out a hoarse bark like a dog. A week’s worth of misery and fear burst from him in a torrent of tears. His shivering grew into full-body shakes and he wrapped the blankets tighter around himself and sobbed. 

Mike was at a loss. He didn’t know whether to reach out and hug Bobby (which would be weird) or leave the room and give him space. Mike definitely liked the latter option but was pretty sure it was the wrong thing to do. So he sat there for a minute and let Bobby cry. When Bobby’s tears didn’t stop, Mike reached over to the box of tissues and handed it to his shivering friend. 

“Th-thanks,” Bobby managed and a slim, pale hand emerged from the blanket to pull out three tissues. He blew his nose loudly and that seemed to calm him. 

Mike ventured, “So, it’s true? You’re a mutant?” 

“Yeah,” Bobby croaked. 

“How long…? When did you know?” 

“Just last week. The night before I came to school late.” 

“Okay.” Mike paused. “And like you have a… power?” 

“Yeah.” Bobby blushed and looked away. 

“Can I ask… um, can you tell me what it is?” He found himself torn between a desire to move closer to Bobby and a desire to get to a safe distance in case his friend, like, exploded or something. 

“Cold. I make things cold. I freeze stuff,” Bobby answered, sneaking a glance at Mike who was staring and tapping his foot nervously against the leg of the coffee table. 

Mike looked around and then back, and said conspiratorially, “Do it. Make it cold in here.” 

“No, man,” Bobby whispered back to him, their heads drawing close. “I can’t! It’s dangerous. I-I killed this dog.” 

“What do you mean? How?” Mike asked, more curious now than frightened. 

“She was attacking me! I didn’t mean it! It was raining and I covered her in ice and… and… I’m fucking dangerous! You should get away! I’m a fucking killer.” Bobby’s voice was arching up into a cracked falsetto and the tears were coming again. 

Mike grabbed his shoulders hard and gave him a shake. “Hey, chill! If the dog was attacking you it was self-defence. You’re not a killer, Bobby! Okay?” 

Bobby sniffled, “Okay.” He shook and sneezed. 

Mike held his gaze, trying to keep Bobby grounded. “I know you won’t hurt me, Bobby. You’re my friend. Is that why you’re sick? Does it have something to do with your… with being a mutant?” 

“I’m not sure, Mike. I think it’s because I’m not using the power. It’s like having to pee really bad and you can’t go. I can feel it inside me. It wants to get out!” 

“The soda!” Mike exclaimed. “Freeze the can of soda, Bobby!” 

“I dunno, I’m scared.” 

Mike got to his feet. “Look, I’ll move over here. It’ll be okay.” He ran across the room and hid behind his father’s big lounger like he had just thrown a grenade. He peeked over the top, his eyes wide with excitement. “Okay, do it!” 

Bobby slid off the sofa, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders and got on his knees in front of the coffee table. He looked a bit confused, like he didn’t know how to do it after all. He held a hand over the can of soda and stared at it. 

Nothing happened. 

“I can’t, man!” Bobby said kind of desperately. “I don’t know how to turn it on!” 

“Okay, okay, listen,” Mike said breathlessly. “You said it’s like taking a piss…” 

Bobby looked offended. “That was just a metaphor, you asshole!” 

“No, listen. You’re just pee-shy. Heh. ‘P’ shy. Power shy.” Mike thought for a minute and then said, “Close your eyes. Do it! Close them, Drake!” He watched as Bobby closed his eyes uncertainly. “And now breathe slowly. Imagine the can getting cold. Imagine that you’re in the Arctic —” 

“Okay, shut up!” Bobby snapped. “It’s my power and I know what I have to imagine.” He breathed deeply and straightened his spine, waving his hand over the can. Suddenly a deep shiver went through him and he gasped. The air around his hand puffed with frost and the can suddenly expanded and burst open with bang. Slushy cola ice dripped off the table top. 

“WOW! That is _fucking awesome!!_ ” Mike yelled, jumping up and running towards Bobby who collapsed forward and grabbed the table for support. 

“Mike! Get back,” Bobby suddenly shouted and his body kind of spasmed. The whole coffee table was instantly covered in white frost. Bobby pulled his hands away and stared at them. 

“Bobby, it’s cool but stop it now.” Mike felt a sudden pang of fear, like he had set something bad in motion. 

“Mike, I can’t stop. I gotta do more…” Bobby staggered to his feet. “I can’t hold it…” 

“Okay, okay!” Mike ran to his side, reaching to grab his arm and then pulling back. Was Bobby dangerous after all? “Just not in the house, Bobby! Come on, follow me!” 

Mike dashed to the back of the family room and yanked open the glass patio doors that led out to the backyard. Bobby ran after him and they climbed through the bushes at the back and up into the wooded area that ran behind the houses. 

Bobby, who had been following, pulled ahead of Mike and ran until he reached a small clearing in the woods. 

“Stay back, Mike!” he yelled, and Mike stopped, sheltering behind an old oak, staring at Bobby who raised his arms in the air like a wizard, swaying a bit. The moment seemed to last forever. Mike felt the cool, late-afternoon spring air nip at his bare arms. He heard birds rustle in the branches and he watched as Bobby rocked and tensed. 

Then suddenly, Bobby cried out and a thick shower of pale frost shot from his outstretched arms. The maple tree before him was vanishing under a skin of ice that climbed its trunk and coated its branches. And as Bobby continued to shout, one branch grew heavier and heavier with ice until it split with an awful crack and crashed to the forest floor. Then Bobby was falling, too, collapsing on the ground as Mike ran to him. 

“Bobby!” Mike dived down beside his friend, grabbing him by the shoulders, turning him on his back and looking down into his eyes. Bobby’s face was pale, his eyes closed and Mike was suddenly afraid he had done the wrong thing, encouraging this adventure. If Bobby was hurt, what was he going to say to Angelica? Or to Bobby’s parents? But then his eyes, mere inches away from his own, opened slowly and a smile moved across Bobby’s relaxed face. 

“Fuck, Mike,” said Bobby, “I feel _way_ better.” 

“Holy shit, Drake,” Mike said a bit hysterically, shaking Bobby’s shoulders. “That was the most awesome thing in the history of awesome things!” Mike fell back in theatrical relief into the leaves. 

Bobby sat up, starting to laugh. He picked up a handful of leaves and twigs and threw them at Mike, who responded with a barrage of his own. It quickly escalated into a war until they breathlessly fell back on the ground beside each other. 

Mike spoke first. “You’re not sick anymore?” 

“No,” said Bobby in wonder. “I feel amazing. Better than I felt all year.” 

“You don’t just make things cold, you know. You make _ice!_ ” 

Bobby looked confused. “What are you talking about, Mike?” 

“Ice! You must draw water out of the air and freeze it. Think about it! The maple tree wasn’t wet, but you covered it in ice.” 

“Whoa,” said Bobby in awe. “Ice.” 

“Iceman,” Mike breathed, like an incantation. They lapsed into silence until Mike began chuckling which soon turned to hysterical laughter. Mike curled into a laughing ball and Bobby jumped on top of him, punching his arm. “What?! What’s so funny?” 

“I-I told you… before, when you were freaking out…” Mike gasped out, clutching his aching ribs. “I-I told you to _‘chill’!_ ” And Bobby fell down beside him, his own hysterics reigniting Mike’s, each boy feeling his laughter reverberate through the ribs of the other. 

 

*** 

 

__to: andimura@gmail.com  
from: b-cube@hotmail.com  
subject: M-word 

_Hi, Andi. It’s me Bobby._

_So I acted like a dork to you in the chatroom. You know what? I am a mutant. I’m sorry I said I wasn’t. I guess I just wasn’t ready to hear that word – at least applied to me. It feels really weird even typing those words but it’s true. I can make cold and ice. I sort of don’t believe it’s true still sometimes, but then I go out to the woods with my friend Mike and I freeze stuff. Mike is pretty impressed with the fact that I have these powers and stuff so I don’t really tell him how freaked out I am._

_I don’t know if I should just keep it all a secret and sneak out sometimes to ice something (otherwise, the pressure gets really bad). But then what if I get caught? What if I make a mistake and freeze something and wreck it. Or SOMEONE. Yeah, scary._

_And I don’t know what my parents would do if they found out. I mean, one minute they think I’m just Bobby and then suddenly I’m, like, this alien. BUT I’M NOT. It feels really unfair sometimes. And sometimes it feels the same as being one of the kids on 2gether – like you’re going through this huge awful thing and you can’t let anyone know. But with 2gether at least I had other kids, you know? I haven’t been in the chatroom in 2 weeks now because I don’t want to tell them and I don’t want to lie._

_I don’t know what i want from you, Andi but you told me to write. So I am. Maybe in all your research you found a magic land where all the little mutants skip through the grass together and no one burns them at the stake or freaks out at them. Heh, I sound like this guy named StJohn in 2gether. I miss them all. Tell them if you go there._

_Anyway, don’t get all weirded out. I’m not all depressed or anything and I’ve got Mike here and he’s being super-cool. But if you have a minute sometime, I would be really, really happy if you wrote me. Really. You can also IM me at screen name b-cube._

_It’s funny that I don’t know you but I trust you. I guess I have to trust someone, huh? Mike and you._

_Bobby (the Iceman!)_

 

“Andi?” came a voice behind her and she jumped out of the rickety office chair with the cracked vinyl seat that looked like it hadn’t seen daylight since 1964\. 

“Raheem, hi!” Andi said with too much enthusiasm. “I was just checking my email, I didn’t look at your files or anything.” She reached around quickly and closed the webmail window on Raheem’s computer and then smoothed her palms above his desk as if somehow undoing any theoretical mess she had made. She realized she spent a lot of time worrying about messes she hadn’t actually produced. 

Raheem, standing half-silhouetted in the door of his dim office laughed and then looked very serious, “I’m sorry, Andi, but you may have learned about the community center’s top-secret nuclear facilities. I will have to kill you now…” He grunted as he put down the heavy pile of file folders. “…by dropping un-filed maintenance reports on your head.” 

Andi sat on the edge of his desk smiling. But then a river of worry flowed across her features. “Did you find out? Did you ask your boss? Did she say no?” 

“She said yes,” he replied with a reassuring smile. “But a very, very _quiet_ yes. You understand?” He came and sat next to Andi and with his head tilted towards her and his voice pitched low, he told her, “You can have a meeting room Tuesday nights from 7 to 9. You can advertise the meetings, but don’t put up any posters in the Center or in any other public buildings. Just on the street and in laundromats and stuff.” 

Andi screwed her face in consternation. “How can we possibly keep this a secret, Raheem? It won’t work!” 

“There are secrets and there are ‘secrets,’ Andi,” he said, taking her hand. “That’s why we separate it from official policy. People in social services want to help, as long as they have a graceful way of saying they didn’t know anything if the shit comes down.” 

She felt herself start to say something critical about hypocrites and the duty to stand up to authority, but then it occurred to her that she had actually gotten everything she wanted. Was this what it felt like to play politics? she wondered. So she made herself smile brightly and said, “Thank you, thanks so much! I won’t get you in trouble. And we’ll be helping so much!” She looked up into his dark eyes and squeezed his hand warmly. 

Suddenly, at the door, someone cleared his throat loudly. Andi turned and saw a young man of maybe 18, with black shining hair and oversized black glasses standing there smirking at them. She pulled back quickly from Raheem, standing and straightening her jacket. 

“Sorry, Raheem,” the young man began in amused, musical tones with a slight Spanish accent. “If I’m interrupting a beautiful moment, I can come back…” 

Raheem rose and took the kid in a friendly headlock, pulling him over to Andi who was blushing and trying to look professional. “Andi, this is Tonio Jimenez. He’s going to show you the meeting room, okay?” 

“Nice to meet you, Andi,” he said, holding out his hand, smile still a little askew with innuendo. 

Andi took his hand firmly and pumped it, looking up with professional earnestness at the face whose eyes were a cipher behind the huge shades, worn incongruously in the dim light of the Center. She thought about all the ways young people hid themselves behind oversized clothes, behind costumes and attitudes. She wondered about her own masks. 

“Nice to meet you, Tonio,” she said. “Please, I’d love to see the room. Did Raheem tell you what… what we’re using it for?” 

“Oh yeah,” he smiled even more broadly, “I know all about it. Let’s go! Later, Raheem. And I promise, I’ll knock next time!” Andi blushed again and followed him out of the room. 

“Do you work here at the Center, Tonio?” Andi asked, trying to stay conversational even as she worked hard to keep up with Tonio who took the worn stairs three at a time. 

“Nah, just hang out sometimes and help how I can,” he yelled over his shoulder as the distance between them increased. She saw him above her at the entrance to the third floor and watched as he took a right down the hall. Andi was a good 15 seconds behind when she found him holding open a door down the corridor. Rather annoyed that he was making her chase him, she put up a dignified, even haughty air and gave a curt “thank you” as she entered the room. 

She marched into the middle of the dark room, noting chairs and old posters for Planned Parenthood in the dim light when suddenly she heard the door close and she was plunged into pitch darkness. 

“Tonio…?” she asked in surprise. 

“Relax,” came a voice in the darkness that immediately made her heart start pounding. 

“Tonio,” she said a bit tentatively, “would you please turn on the lights now?” 

“Have a seat, Andi,” he continued. She could hear the smile in his voice and it made her uneasy. The darkness was total and she could hear him moving slowly. “There’s a chair to your right.” She wanted to shout for help or at least to let him know she wasn’t weak and helpless, but she found herself groping for the chair anyway. “No, that’s your left.” She switched hands and immediately smacked her forearm into the chair. She gripped it tight but didn’t sit. 

She felt foolish being so intimidated by the kid and wondered if latent racist tendencies were making her demonize a Hispanic. But no, this was not appropriate! “This isn’t appropriate, Tonio! I want you to turn on the lights right now,” she said as she silently opened her purse and pulled out her keys, palming them as a weapon. 

“Easy, Andi! It’s cool. And please put your keys away; I’m not gonna hurt you.” 

“You heard…?” 

“No, I can see them. You have a leather thing on the key chain with gold letters and one of the keys has a big chunky plastic handle.” Andi strained her eyes against the dark but there was no way she could see the keys in her own hand. He continued, “And now you’re running your fingers through your hair, and now you’re looking up at me really surprised. Your eyes are pretty.” 

The lights came on. She flinched in the sudden glare but recovered quickly. She could see him standing by the light switch; his glasses were off and his eyes were tightly closed. There was something strange… and only as he tentatively opened his eyes, squinting against the light of the fluorescents did she see that they were huge, twice the size of normal human eyes with a series of folds and wrinkles around them where the oversized lids and lashes made room for themselves on his otherwise normal teenage face. The effect was disturbingly like the face of a cocker spaniel. 

It was clear that the light pained him but he looked her in the eye as best he could for a few seconds before retrieving the huge sunglasses from the collar of his t-shirt and putting them back on his face. She sank in the old wooden chair that must have been a leftover from some Depression-era classroom. 

“You’re a mutant,” she said quietly. She felt something move in her heart. Despite weeks of immersion in the theoretical world of mutants, Tonio was the first she had met in person. 

“Yeah,” he replied, his bravado subdued now that he had revealed himself to her. He scraped another of the old chairs across the floor to himself and turned it backwards, sitting with legs wide, leaning over the back, facing her. “When I hit puberty and started growing, well, my eyes grew faster than the rest of me. At first I was just funny-looking and they called me ‘Highbeams.’ But then it started going beyond just weird to _freakish_ , y’know?” 

She nodded quietly, looking into his face without fear. 

“And I had to drop out of school. It got kind of dangerous sometimes. I figured out I could see in the dark and that came in handy when I had to escape from kids sometimes. I know how the deer in the forest feel when all the hunters are out.” 

“Have you been able to finish high school?” 

“Nah, but Raheem wants me to do evening classes, and I can do some courses online from the Center here. Mostly I help out in my parents’ clothing store.” 

“So at least you’re learning how to run the store and do sales.” 

“Well, I kinda scare the customers, so they keep me in the back most of the time.” There was just a hint of the caustic in his statement. They lapsed into silence for a minute. 

“So now,” Tonio began again, “time for me to ask you some questions, Ms. Andi.” She tried to put on an air of attentive calm, but she was still disturbed by his earlier stunt and wondered now what he really wanted. “Are you a mutant, too?” 

“Me? No! I’m…” She struggled for a word other than ‘normal’. “I’m not, Tonio.” 

“Then why are you so into helping out freaks like me? And why should we trust you?” He wasn’t hiding his suspicion now and she could feel the resentment coming back at her from the years of mistreatment he had faced. She shifted in her chair as a sour cord of doubt wound its way through her. 

“I-I want to help,” she began uncertainly. “I know I’m not a mutant, but I can’t stand seeing what’s happening to mutant youth — to kids like you — and-and I thought this group would be a good start.” Tonio had crossed his arms on his chest and was staring at her from behind his impenetrable glasses. She felt the words catching in her throat. 

“Look, sister, you’re cute and nice and stuff, but this is serious business.” He got up out of the chair, his brow creasing as his voice rose. “There’s a whole country out there who doesn’t want us, and your little group won’t make that change. So go back to school and become a nice social worker lady in a safe office. We mutants’ll fend for ourselves, ’cause you don’t know, chica. You just don’t know.” He turned and walked out of the room, leaving Andi with her mouth hanging open. 

“Tonio!” she called after him, but his resolute footsteps continued to recede. And part of her was glad he didn’t stop. Because, she wondered, what the hell would she have said? What words did she have to soothe his hurt? Who the hell did she think she was anyway? 

 

*** 

 

Bobby and Andi found each other on Messenger that night. Mike accepted with a shrug Bobby’s request for some private computer time and wandered off to watch the hockey game. 

Bobby had so much to say, he thought he had developed a new mutant power of speed typing. He told her how Mike was trying to get him to make ice sculptures that actually looked like something other than melted garden gnomes. He told her he was having nightmares when he could sleep at all, if he wasn’t lying awake wondering about the future. 

Andi, for her part told Bobby about the mutant youth support meeting that was coming up in just a few days. She eventually admitted how nervous she was. That shocked Bobby, who thought of her as some kind of wise sage. 

_andimura > I’m still a student myself, Bobby_  
 _b-cube > I think you’re a really good therapist or whatever. You should talk to my mom_  
 _andimura > about you?_  
 _b-cube > No!! no way! I mean because she’s crazy. I phone her and she’s going on and on about marriage counseling that they’re doing_  
 _andimura > that sounds positive_  
 _b-cube > I don’t think she thinks so. She keeps asking me what I think. Like she needs my approval or something_  
 _andimura > how does that make you feel?_  
 _b-cube > mad. she makes me feel like I’m the parent sometimes_  
 _andimura > Parents struggle too, Bobby. But it’s not fair of her to make you her counselor. Why don’t you get some support on 2gether about this? _  
_b-cube > I can’t! I don’t want to talk about the mutant thing there yet._  
 _andimura > so don’t. just talk about your parents_  
 _b-cube > no! then i’d be a stupid liar. I don’t want to lie to gina and the others._  
 _andimura > I understand. I wish you could be in NYC for the support meeting. I think you’d be a big help to a lot of kids_  
 _b-cube > me? I’m so messed up I’d make everyone feel worse_  
 _andimura > Bobby, cut the drama. You are thoughtful and empathetic. I think you’d help a lot of kids. I think you could be a leader._  
 _b-cube > …_  
 _b-cube > I want to say ‘bullshit’ but you’ll yell at me. so I’ll just say thanks._  
 _andimura > I still don’t know where u r. Far from here?_  
 _b-cube > Boston_  
 _andimura > you’re kidding_  
 _b-cube > no. why?_  
 _andimura > just something someone said…_  
 _b-cube > ???_

 

In the days that followed, Bobby felt himself sinking back into his depression. He and Mike took their first exam on Friday morning in the gymnasium, the desks assembled in long, well-spaced lines. But as Bobby began solving the geometry puzzles in front of him, he started to lose focus. He looked around the hall at all the ‘normal’ kids and he wanted to run. He began to sweat, imagining that they knew he was a mutant. 

What if Mike had told someone — just a close friend, like Greenstein — and then it was all over the school! Graffiti on the walls about ‘Drake the mutie’, a gang of tough boys lined up to get him when he left the school grounds. Suddenly everyone around him was an enemy. He had to get away! 

“Bobby!” Mike hissed from the seat in the next row. Bobby’s head snapped up and then followed Mike’s glance down to where Bobby had left a thin sheet of frost over the side of the desk. Bobby quickly rubbed the ice away, leaving the desk damp but otherwise unscathed. 

A supervising teacher cleared his throat loudly at them and the two boys dropped their gaze back to their exams. 

Later, in the woods, Bobby was silent as Mike commented on his lumpy ice creations. 

“Dude, that one almost looks like a bird or-or a pterodactyl! Can you make one really, really tall now?” Bobby didn’t answer. “Uh, Bobby? I said — did you notice there was a burning helicopter down your pants?” 

“Huh?” Bobby looked up, startled. “Sorry, I-I was thinking of something.” 

Mike laughed, “What?” 

“How can I get to New York?” 

“Uh, is this like the joke about ‘how do I get to Carnegie Hall’?” Bobby looked at him uncomprehendingly. Mike rolled his eyes. “When do you want to go?” 

“Like next Tuesday.” 

“Bobby, we have exams Thursday and Friday!” 

“I know! But we’re studying now. And we could study when we’re there. Mike, I think it’s important.” He looked beseechingly at his friend, who bit into a fingernail and furrowed his brow in thought. 

“Secret mutant stuff?” Mike asked and Bobby nodded. “This Andi chick getting you in trouble?” 

“I hope not. She’s, um, having this mutant youth meeting. She says I could help her. Of course she’s crazy to think that, but —” 

“So, it’ll be like a roomful of you guys? Talking about what it’s like to be a mutant?” 

Bobby began babbling. “You’re right, it’s stupid. We have exams and maybe I’m just gonna get in trouble. Forget it!” He turned half away, shooting off blasts of ice that kicked up the forest floor, his face red under his ash curls. 

Mike started laughing, “Hey, Iceman, I didn’t say it was stupid. I think we should totally go.” 

Bobby stopped and turned back. “Really?” 

“Of course! what are you going to do here? Keep running into the woods to make ice? You have this huge thing inside you, and I sure can’t tell you what to do with it.” Mike grew serious. “I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t want to mess you up, but eventually someone’s going to find out, and then I don’t know what’ll happen.” Bobby watched him carefully as he continued. “People are scared, Bobby. There was another editorial about registering mutants today in the _Globe_. And lots of bullshit letters to the editor about camps and compounds. It-it scared me, Bobby.” 

“We’re not monsters, Mike.” Bobby said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like… thinking everyone’s going to hate you all the time. Wondering if the FBI is gonna bust into your house and take you away.” 

“No, Drake, I have no idea,” Mike said with sudden bitterness. “I’m just an Arab in post-9/11 America.” 

Bobby dropped his head in shame. “I-I never thought of you like that. You’re just my friend.” 

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Bobby. I have my family and my friends.” His tone softened, “But you need some new friends now, ones who know about this stuff that’s happening to you.” Mike was silent for a minute until Bobby looked up at him. He continued, “And that’s why you should go to New York to this mutant meeting. You should meet Andi and figure out what you’re going to do now.” 

“But how do we get there?” 

Mike grinned, the famous Haddad confidence kicking in. “I got it covered. We’ll go by bus and stay with my Aunt Fatima. She lives in Manhattan, Upper West Side. She totally loves me. Angelica will have to say yes if my aunt invites us, and your mom will say yes if there’s another adult taking responsibility.” 

They began talking excitedly about New York and what they would do there, Mike showing off his insider knowledge of the Big Apple. Bobby tried to make the Statue of Liberty in ice but it came out looking like a buffalo standing on its hind legs. He added big boobs to the front and they declared it a great success until the breasts overbalanced it and it crashed to the ground in a thousand melting pieces. The boys howled. 

 

*** 

 

At 10:30, the night before the first-ever mutant youth support meeting, Andi was in her apartment, going through her notes for the hundredth time. She realized it was time to stop when she found herself trying to memorize various social service phone numbers to create the illusion that she just happened to know things like that off the top of her head. _Stop it, woman,_ she chided herself. _You are as ready as you are going to be._

She went to the kitchen to heat up some soup, grabbing the historical fiction she was reading, intending to slow down her brain and finally relax. But just as she sat at the table, the phone rang. She jumped up and grabbed the receiver, almost knocking her soup to the floor. 

“Hello?” she said. 

The voice on the other end, avuncular and calm, made her even more nervous. “Andi? This is Charles Xavier. How are you?” 

“Professor! Oh, great. Just going over some notes for tomorrow.” 

“I’m terribly sorry for phoning this late; I’ve been caught up in a meeting. But I wanted to see if there was anything else you needed before your big day.” 

She wanted to tell him she couldn’t do it. She wanted to say she was afraid she’d freak out if she saw some weird mutation. She wanted to say what Tonio had said — that she had no business butting into the affairs of mutants when she wasn’t one. 

“No, no,” she said instead, “Everything’s right on track. I’m really looking forward to this opportunity.” 

“Excellent!” Xavier replied. “You’ll have to give me a full report later. What you’re doing is wonderful and important work. Perhaps I’ll come into the city next week and we can debrief in person.” 

Feeling, as she was, like the world’s biggest fraud, this prospect horrified her. But she also realized she had paid for this roller coaster ride and there was no getting off before it was over. 

“Great. It would be an honor to meet you in person, Professor.” Xavier was asking all the questions, she realized, and she was answering obediently like a good little girl. She decided that if she was going to earn his respect, she would have to take charge of the conversation. 

“Actually, I’m really pleased that the young mutant — uh, the young man I met online is going to come down to New York for the meeting.” 

“Really! The one you told me about?” Xavier sounded different, as if she could hear him leaning forward in his chair. Maybe she was scoring some points, she thought. 

“Yes,” she answered. “I encouraged him to come. I said he could offer a peer perspective that would really energize the meeting.” 

“Andi, would you mind hanging on for just a minute?” Before she could get out an answer, he had put her on hold. She felt her sense of control slipping rapidly. 

A minute later, Xavier was back. “Andi, if it would not be too much trouble for you, would you mind if I attended tomorrow?” 

Her eyes went wide. This was about the worst request she could imagine. It was one thing to be bringing Xavier a well-massaged report on the success of her program in one week’s time; it was quite another to have the senior genius watching her every move. She stammered, “You mean, y-you want to come to the meeting?!” 

“Please, don’t worry! I know it’s your show, as it were. But I would like the opportunity to meet this young man,” he went on enthusiastically. Andi wanted to scream ‘NO!’ but she found herself grinning idiotically in her empty apartment and nodding. 

“Th-that’s great, Professor Xavier! It will _really_ be a special day then!” 

“Maybe I could address your young men and women at the start of the proceedings,” he suggested and Andi resisted the urge to hurl the phone across the room. She sat heavily down in her chair. _Dammit_ , she thought. _I’m doing all the work and he’s going to swoop in and take the credit!_

But instead, she said, “Do you think that’s a good idea, sir? I want to create an, um, informal —” 

“Yes, yes, of course. I would leave right after I spoke, but I think there are things that they need to hear about the world as it relates to them. Perhaps you should hear them, too, Andi.” 

She took a deep breath but found nothing to say. 

Xavier’s voice seemed to soften. “Are you sure you’re not at all worried about the meeting, Andi?” 

“Well,” she exhaled heavily. “Maybe a few micro-butterflies.” 

“Don’t worry, my dear. You can’t plan for every contingency. Just trust what’s in you and everything will be fine.” 

“Do you really think so?” 

“I do.” 

And she decided to believe him, remembering what her mother used to tell her when she was an over-achieving high school student: _Holding up the world by yourself can get tiring_. 

“Well, okay then, Professor,” she said. “Here we go…” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby and Mike boarded the bus on a corner in Chinatown. This was one of Mike’s secret pieces of knowledge; private Chinese tour buses that could get you from city to city cheaper than Greyhound. Bobby felt strangely calm. He carried the minimum in his backpack. For the first time in his life, he felt that he could live without anything. If he never returned to his room to retrieve his treasures, he wouldn’t even care. He was a monk in the desert. He was an explorer of the Poles. He had no expectations; only blank slates and white expanses in front of him. 

Mike, in contrast, was dripping with junk. His overstuffed duffel bag contained enough clothes, books, gaming paraphernalia and shoes he deemed cool enough for Manhattan to last a week. Bobby found himself constantly reaching over to shove one of his friend’s stray socks back into one of the bag’s pockets and zip it tight. 

They made their way onto the bus, smiling awkwardly at the Chinese tourists. Angelica stood beside the car that she had brought them down in. Mike waved to her somewhat forlornly, and Bobby wished his mom were there to see them off, too. But she didn’t know him anymore. He wasn’t the son that had grown up in that house. He wasn’t even the son that had left ten days ago. 

The bus growled into life and Bobby inhaled the scent of diesel and air freshener. Mike grabbed his arm, excitedly. 

“Here we go!” 


	4. Cancer

“There is a cancer in our midst!” the man intoned fervently into the cheap microphone, his voice emerging aggressively distorted from the tiny speaker at his feet. “A malignant growth that rises from the corrupted flesh of our sinful society.” Bobby’s back was pressed hard against the brick wall. MA-LIG-NANT. The man — the preacher, he supposed — spat out the words with a righteous fury that commanded attention and demanded action. 

Not that the passersby were listening. It was New York City at six in the evening and everyone seemed to be going somewhere. But the preacher in the patched jacket and the worn-shiny fedora saw that he had attracted the attention of the two teenage boys who looked so out of place in the speed and density of New York. It was to them he now delivered his message. 

“God did not create these abominations — these _mu-tants_. They emerged in our midst because we are sinners. We have taken the Lord’s majestic Creation and we have polluted it with fornication, with pre-marital sex, with homosexuality. What is the fruit of the union of two men? Mutants! What is the fruit of contraception and abortion? Mutants! 

“They are the minions of Satan and they will overrun us! They will take our world and make it a sewer, a pit of pestilence unless we give ourselves up to Jesus Christ!” 

“Bobby,” Mike hissed, but Bobby was frozen in place, hypnotized by the confident cadence of the preacher’s words. Mike grabbed his arm and started dragging him away. Only as Bobby began to stumble after his friend did he snap out of his shocked state. They began moving down the crowded sidewalk like two fish swimming against the current, buffeted by the waves of intent commuters. 

“Seriously, Bobby, what is wrong with you? The guy’s a nutcase.” 

Bobby seemed shell-shocked as he replied: “I know, I know. But the way he says it — it’s like he sees the truth or something.” 

“He’s just got a loud voice and your ears are too big today.” 

They rounded the block and found themselves in front of the Midtown Youth Center. They stood in silence at the base of the steps and Bobby stared despairingly at the big front doors. 

Mike turned to him. “So, Drake, you going to do it this time? You going in?” 

Bobby was rooted to his slab of sidewalk, his whole body thrumming with nervous energy. 

Suddenly, a girl appeared behind them. She moved in real close and said in a sweet, encouraging voice, “Don’t be afraid. After you go through those doors the first time, you’ll be a different person.” 

Bobby laughed nervously. “Who says I’m different? I’m just here to meet someone… I’m not…” 

Then Bobby looked at her closely, squinting his eyes. He realized she was a boy who was dressed like a girl. Acting like a girl! He pulled away nervously, giving Mike a pleading look. “Um, maybe we should, um, just go, okay?” Bobby turned and started back up the sidewalk the way they had come. 

He had no choice — his legs carried him away of their own accord. Bobby felt like a fool, like a failure. But he also seemed to have no control over the long limbs that marched beneath him. 

Bobby heard another pair of feet pounding up the pavement behind him and was not really surprised when Mike grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him up against the wall. 

“Bobby, just stop!” Mike shouted, leaning his weight into him like he was wrestling a hot-air balloon to the ground. “You have to go to this meeting! You made me fucking bring you all the way from Boston! You begged me!” 

“I know,” Bobby shouted back. 

“Andi is waiting for you.” 

“Look,” Bobby growled through gritted teeth, “if you don’t want to be here, just leave!” 

Mike pulled back and crossed his arms on his chest. He stared at Bobby, who glared back until there was no point. Bobby slumped against the wall like he had run out of steam. 

“I don’t know if I can go through with it! That girl…guy — whatever — was right! Once I do this, there’s no turning back.” 

“Bobby, the first time you made ice, you already passed the point of no return.” 

Bobby’s heart sank. Mike lowered his voice and moved in closer. “You’re a mutant. And that’s really something. But it’s also a tough break, dude. You’re going to have to be brave — starting today. What are you going to do when you see an anti-mutant protest? Or hear people talking crap at school? You going to run away? Where to? The Antarctic? I hear the penguins don’t have any problem with mutants.” 

“I gotta go in, don’t I?” Bobby asked quietly. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Bobby,” Mike said carefully. “But if you do, I’ll be right there with you. Okay?” 

Bobby had to turn his face away then because he felt like crying. He found himself suddenly full of feelings he couldn’t name. He wanted to tell Mike thank you. He wanted to do something crazy like hug him or say “I love you…” 

“Your souls! Look to your souls, boys,” the low-rent, street-corner preacher warned, suddenly appearing beside them. The boys pulled apart as the man invaded their space. 

“We don’t have to give up God’s world to Satan’s mutants!” He declared with intensity as he thrust a battered donation can in front of them. “Give to our church and save yourselves before it’s too late!” 

Mike opened his mouth to speak, but it was Bobby, his blue eyes brilliant with rage who suddenly yelled, “Fuck you!” and slapped the can out of the man’s hand with such force that it clanked against the wall like a bell. The three fell silent for a second, the preacher holding his smacked hand in his surprise. Face darkening, he raised himself up to launch into a hellfire retort, when Mike whooped and grabbed Bobby by the arm. 

“Let’s get out of here!” he shouted and the two boys began running full speed back down the sidewalk, laughing in triumph, right up the steps of the Youth Center and through it’s heavy wooden doors. 

Bobby blinked in the dimness and sudden quiet of the lobby. He stared nervously at posters for Planned Parenthood and ones for safe sex showing two naked men embracing. Bobby turned away, not wanting Mike to know he even saw that. They kind of huddled in the doorway, trying to figure out their next move. 

A long, lanky man, his hair spiky with lack of care spotted them and seemed to fly across the room with three thrusts of his long legs. He pinned them with his eyes and barked at them in a throaty, broken voice. “You got no right to follow me here! I told you it wasn’t me! I told you!” 

From across the room, a tall Hispanic kid wearing big sunglasses ran over and got between the man and Mike and Bobby. “Hey, Jack, why don’t you just come sit down? It’s kind of hot in here, huh?” With a firm but gentle hand on Jack’s upper arm, he led him away, turning to smile apologetically over his shoulder at the boys. “Let’s get some water from the fountain.” 

“Bobby?” came a woman’s voice from the stairs. 

Bobby snapped his head around, wondering what new assault the Center had for him. But what he saw didn’t look too threatening: a Japanese woman, maybe 5’3”, spine erect and eyes sparkling. She was dressed kind of like the secretaries in his dad’s office and her dark hair was pulled back and held in place by a clip. 

“Are you Andi?” 

“That’s me,” she confirmed, smiling as she came to a stop in front of him. 

Bobby grinned shyly back, saying, “How did you know it was me?!” 

“Well, I was expecting two 15-year-old boys looking bewildered.” 

“Hey,” Mike objected. “It’s been a crazy day! You’d be bewildered, too!” 

“You’re Mike, right?” Andi asked, and Mike nodded. 

Bobby blinked and sputtered, “Uh, I didn’t know you were, um, Asian.” 

“And I didn’t know you blushed so much!” she retorted with a laugh. “Don’t worry, we have a lot to learn about each other.” 

The Hispanic guy walked up to them, all smiles. “Hey,” he began. “I’m Tonio. Welcome to the Midtown Youth Center.” 

Mike stuck out his hand, “Mike. Hi.” 

“And I’m Bobby,” added Bobby, offering his hand, too. 

“Sorry about Jack before. He gets a bit confused when he sees strangers. But he’s harmless. Andi says you’re from Boston. How’s New York treating you?” 

Mike, as usual, designated himself their spokesman. “Great! Everyone’s really cool here. They gave us directions when we were lost. I think people in New York are really friendly. Oh, well, except this preacher guy —” 

“Let me tell,” burst out Bobby. “He was going on about mutants! How they were the product of sin!” He waved his arms in imitation of the preacher, “‘Sex and gay people and abortion cause mutation!’ It was nuts!” 

“Oh my God!” Andi looked shocked. “How did that make you feel?” 

“I was pissed, for sure!” Bobby told her, warming to the subject. “And you know what I did? I told him to get lost!” He backed up, as if taking his stage. “I told him that mutants are not against God. If there is a God, He made mutants same as He made everyone else, you know?” 

Bobby noticed Mike’s incredulous expression and looked quickly back to Andi and Tonio, continuing. “I mean, they aren’t different than any other people. And then… and then he shoved his can at us…” Andi seemed startled. “I mean, his _charity_ can, right Mike? And, and I said, ‘mutants are not the problem, you are!’” 

“Right on, man!” smiled Tonio. 

Andi nodded, “That was really brave of you, Bobby.” 

Bobby took a covert glance at Mike who rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Bobby was pretty impressive.” 

Andi turned to Mike. “You’ve been pretty impressive yourself, Mike. A lot of so-called friends would have run the other way if they found out a buddy was a mutant. You’ve shown Bobby what a true friend really is.” 

Mike looked embarrassed. He sort of squinted up his eyes and said, “Anybody who would throw out a friend for that has got something really deeply wrong with them.” 

Bobby was getting that choked up feeling again so he looked around the room a bit. There was that Jack guy sitting on a couch, muttering to himself. Other people were checking ads on the bulletin board or reading the big schedule above the reception desk. ‘Al-Anon,’ ‘Questioning Gender,’ ‘Breast Cancer Support Network’. He spotted a young woman reading the schedule. She was wearing a big spring coat with her hair under a kerchief and her eyes lowered. She was holding one of the flyers for the meeting that had been posted around town. _She’s a mutant,_ he realized. _Like me._

The girl looked at the big clock on the wall and Bobby did, too: 6:15 p.m. 

“Wow,” he said, turning back to Andi and the boys. “Just 45 minutes till the meeting!” 

Andi confirmed that on her watch and said, “How are you feeling? I’m pretty nervous!” 

“What are _you_ nervous about?” he replied. “You’re, like, a professional at this.” 

“Bobby, before we chatted last month, I knew nothing about mutants and I had never met one!” 

“That you know of,” Tonio added wryly. The other three looked at him and his words sunk in. 

“That’s a good point, Tonio,” Andi replied, nodding. “Listen, can Bobby and I talk alone up in the room for a few minutes?” 

Tonio looked across to the schedule board. “We can’t get in there for another half hour.” He pointed at a door across the lobby. “Go talk in Meeting Room A. There’s no one in there until seven. Hey, Mike, we need to get some chairs from the basement. You feeling strong?” 

“Sure,” Mike answered and they headed off together. 

Andi put a hand on Bobby’s arm, saying, “Come on,” and led them into the meeting room, closing the door behind them. 

She leaned against the closed door, closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. 

“Wow,” Bobby said, surprised. “You really are nervous about this.” 

“You bet,” she answered. “These kids are coming here expecting me to be able to offer some help. It’s scary, you understand?” 

“Yeah, I do. I’m one of the people looking for answers!” He smiled awkwardly at her. Was it better or worse that she was nervous, too? “So what are you going to say?” 

Andi abruptly squared her shoulders, straightened her jacket and became instantly professional. “We’ll offer help the best way we can. We’ll listen carefully and we’ll speak from the heart.” 

“We?!” Bobby exclaimed, his voice rising a bit. 

She smiled reassuringly at him and took his arm again, leading him over to a couple of chairs. “Come on, let’s sit down. Yes, Bobby: ‘ _we’_. I want you to think of yourself as my co-convener today.” She sat in one of the chairs, but he remained standing. 

“‘Co-convenor,’” he squeaked. “What is that?” Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good and his leg began bouncing on the floor. 

“It means I want you to lead the group with me; interact with kids, ask questions, keep the discussion flowing.” 

“Huh? That’s crazy! I’m just the same as all the others will be: I’m scared, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me —” 

“And that makes you a perfect peer counselor. Bobby, sit, please.” He lowered himself into the chair like an automaton as she continued, “Sure, I have some professional knowledge, and I’m going to be a psychologist on paper one of these days, but you’re the one who knows from the inside what it means to be a mutant.” 

“I’ve been a mutant for a month!” he retorted. 

“Bobby, I really need your help here,” Andi pleaded. “Without a peer component, I’m afraid the kids won’t trust me; then we won’t be able to help at all.” 

Bobby was miserable. He was disappointing her; he was being ungrateful for all her kindness. “But what if I don’t know what to say? What if I say something stupid?” He slumped down deep in his chair and wrapped his arms around himself like a straightjacket. “I can’t do it, I’m really sorry.” 

“Look, we all say stupid things everyday, so don’t try too hard to be perfect.” Her tone grew soothing. “Frankly, I’m not too worried. You haven’t logged on to 2gether for a while, but I’ve been dropping in.” Bobby furrowed his eyebrows, another wave of guilt running through him. “People there say a lot of good things about you.” 

Bobby sat up again, “Oh my god, you’re talking to people about me?” He dropped his face into his hands. “Why did you do that? What did you tell them, Andi?!” 

“I didn’t bring you up in the conversation. Gina asked and I just said you were going through some tough times and you were okay.” 

“You didn’t say…” 

“That you’re a mutant? Of course not Bobby! That’s for you to tell if you choose to.” Bobby relaxed a little, sinking a few inches back down in the chair. “I wish you could have seen what they were saying about you. They told me you always know the right thing to say, whether to be serious or make a joke and how you make everyone feel welcome.” 

Despite himself, Bobby felt a bit of pride. “Really? Who said that?” 

“Gina, Gundam, Dark Princess… all of them. And that’s why I know you’ll be a great co-convener. What do you say?” 

He didn’t answer the question, but he could feel the knot of tension loosening a bit. He looked over at Andi, saying, “I feel so bad that I’ve been avoiding them. I miss them. Okay, I’ll help you but I’m telling you, you’ll be disappointed.” 

Andi laughed, “Okay, tell you what: if I’m _not_ disappointed, you owe me five bucks. Deal?” 

Bobby laughed back. “Deal.” 

Suddenly Andi’s cell phone rang, and the sound seemed to send her right back to the breathless panic she had entered the room with. 

“Hello?” she said loudly. “Professor, hi! I was getting worried you wouldn’t make it.” She rose out of her seat, continuing with forced enthusiasm. “Where are you? Oh, so you’ll be right in. Do you need help? Oh great!” 

She moved quickly to the door of the room. Bobby watched her in surprise, wondering what could be causing her so much anxiety. 

“So, he can help you get upstairs?” she asked, opening the door. Noise from outside suddenly broke the stillness as Andi spoke, looking around the lobby. “Yes, there’s an elevator. What does he look like? And his name is… Oh, I see him!” She waved a hand high over her head and called out into the lobby: “Scott? Hi, I’m Andi! We’re in here.” Back into her cell phone she said, “Okay, I’ll see you in a minute. I can’t wait. Bye!” 

She hung up the phone and leaned against the door jamb, biting a corner of an already bitten-down fingernail. Curious, Bobby stood up and wandered a few steps closer. “What’s up? Who’s this professor guy?” 

Andi turned to him with a guilty look on her face, her professional demeanor gone again. He felt himself growing nervous, too. 

“Bobby, I have to tell you one more thing. I think it’s the real reason I’m so freaked out. There’s this man — a mutant expert — and he’s coming to the meeting.” 

“But that’s good; less pressure on us.” 

Andi continued carefully, “No, Professor Xavier’s just going to speak for a few minutes at the beginning. But he’s also coming here because…” She hesitated, as if trying to get the words just right. “Because he wants to meet you.” 

Bobby felt his mind slip a gear. “Me? Why would he want…? Does he know I’m a…? How? How does he even know _anything_ about me, Andi?!” 

Andi looked devastated. “I’m sorry, Bobby,” she answered quickly, “I didn’t mean to reveal anything you told me in confidence, but Professor Xavier has been extremely helpful in letting me know about mutants — about manifestations and powers and the different classes of mutation. He seemed to know about you already; and he was very excited about meeting you.” 

Bobby was looking out at the lobby, looking around the room. He felt like he was part of some weird conspiracy. Maybe this whole meeting was a trap! He sputtered out, “But why would some professor want to meet _me_?!” 

A voice from the door made them suddenly turn their heads. “Andi?” 

Bobby saw a handsome man in his twenties with chestnut brown hair and a strong jaw wearing the coolest pair of red sunglasses. The young man assessed them both with a penetrating gaze that Bobby could feel even without being able to see his eyes. _This is the professor?_ Bobby wondered. _Wow_. 

The young man in the red glasses looked around the room critically, as if assessing its worth or, perhaps, its security. 

“Please move some of those chairs aside,” he told them. “I’ll bring the Professor in.” 

Bobby blinked in confusion as the man vanished again. He stood frozen as Andi moved a few chairs that were close to the door. Bobby turned to ask her more questions when he heard the gentle whirring of a motor. What he saw coming through the door made his blood turn cold. 

Time seemed to slow, and distance to telescope. As if through heavy velvet drapes, Bobby could hear Andi telling him, “This is Professor Charles Xavier.” The bald mage from his nightmares came towards him in a wheelchair, the fluorescent light from the room glinting off his bald head just as the red moon of the dream landscape had. Bobby felt his legs buckling and tried to reach for the chair behind him, but missed the seat and landed heavily on the ground. 

The mage’s red-eyed accomplice moved toward him, but Bobby held out hand to defend himself. Suddenly, the man’s outstretched arm was covered in frost. Bobby cried out and pulled himself into a tight ball, feeling cold spinning out of him, tendrils of ice snaking across the floor. He heard Andi shouting, but he couldn’t stop the ice, he couldn’t stop — 

And then the voice spoke. It was a voice that wasn’t a voice and it spoke inside his head in a language that had no words, that didn’t move the air. It was a disturbingly visceral feeling, as if meaning were vibrating in his core. 

_*Robert Drake!*_ the voice proclaimed, _*Listen to me now. You are safe. You will reach inside yourself and turn off your powers!*_

And Bobby knew the voice belonged to the mage. He had his face buried in his arms but somehow he could feel the mage’s eyes locked onto his. He felt suddenly naked, vulnerable and transfixed by the clarity of the eyes in his mind and the certainty of the probing, pervasive voice that seemed to speak in the deepest corners of his self. 

_*You will shut off your powers… NOW!*_

And Bobby did. Like turning a switch, he controlled the ice. Slowly, he became aware of the world once more. He found himself sitting on the floor surrounded by frost and ice that was already beginning to melt, his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around them. He was shaking. 

“Bobby!” Andi cried out and started to come towards him but Xavier spoke sharply. 

“Scott! Please take Ms. Murakami out.” 

Andi objected, her voice betraying her fear, “But, Bobby might need —” 

“The Professor will handle this, Ma’am. He knows what to do,” Scott said, putting his arm around her shoulder and shepherding her quickly out the door. 

Bobby found himself alone with the man from his darkest nightmare. 

_*Bobby*_ , said the voice in his head. _*I need you to trust me.*_ Bobby stared into the man’s eyes, sinking deeper and deeper into their dark gravity. His panic seemed to drain from him, replaced by warmth and a sense of peace. He became aware of his heart slowing and his breath returning again to an even rhythm. Slowly he uncurled himself and stood up. 

“How are you, son?” The Professor asked aloud, with great gentleness. Bobby didn’t respond. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll talk?” But Bobby continued to stand, now towering above the Professor in his wheelchair. He was just an old man, not a nightmare. The voice that had rumbled through his core was now just a voice, the eyes that had burned like the crater of a volcano, merely pale blue. 

Carefully, Bobby asked, “How… How are you here? Why did I dream about you?” 

“I am sorry about that, Robert,” Xavier said in a conciliatory tone. “There is a…device called Cerebro. Someday soon I would like to show it to you. Cerebro allows me to locate mutant minds and to enhance the reach of my telepathy. That is how I became aware of your presence in Boston. But my control is not yet exact. I was aware that we were communicating, but I did not realize that you were incorporating my presence into your dreamscape. That must have been frightening.” 

There was too much information to digest, so Bobby grabbed onto one word. “Telepathy? Mind reading?” 

“Yes, Robert,” The Professor replied seriously. “That is my power. I am Charles Xavier, a former professor of psychology here in New York. I am also a mutant. Now, please have a seat so we can… see eye-to-eye.” He smiled kindly. 

Bobby slowly sat in a chair opposite the Professor, but not too close. He willed himself to look right at the man and spoke with as much dignity as he could muster. “Andi said you wanted to meet me. Why?” 

“You are a mutant, Bobby, endowed with great abilities.” Xavier told him. “It’s my mission to find mutants like you. To help you.” 

“Is the other guy… Scott? Is he a mutant, too?” 

“Yes, a very powerful one. He is my assistant. He makes many things possible in my life. He helps me bring my dreams to reality.” 

“Your dreams?” Bobby asked, growing intrigued. 

“Since I’ve been in your dreams, it’s only fair I let you in on mine,” he said, smiling and Bobby couldn’t help but smile back; sitting with his nightmare had already become weirdly normal. 

“I dream of a world where humans and mutants can live peacefully together; where each individual can use his or her gifts for the betterment of all.” Bobby found himself leaning forward in his chair. “The path to this goal is not a smooth one, Robert. That is why I am searching for mutants, for those with special gifts, both in their mutant powers and in their unique capacities for leadership.” 

_Leadership?_ Bobby thought. _Why is everyone calling me a ‘leader’ today?_

Xavier continued. “The time has come when we must stand up as a community and earn the respect of humanity. But the pressures of politics and the perils of mistrust — on both sides — mean we must work quickly.” 

Bobby listened seriously, suddenly aware of a world of much higher stakes than the one he inhabited at school or with his family. 

“There’s another pillar in the house of my dream, Robert,” Xavier said. “A school for gifted youngsters. I had to meet you to find out whether or not you would be a good candidate.” 

“But I’m not gif… Oh, you mean a school for _mutants_?” 

“Yes. An institute for young mutants where they can study without fear, where they can become the leaders of our community and help bring about the world of peace that I know we can have.” 

Bobby was enthralled. “How many students do you have, Professor?” 

“None, yet. But in September, we will begin a full program.” 

“I think… I think I’d like to do that, sir.” Bobby said, feeling certain about something for the first time that day. 

“That’s good, Mr. Drake, but do not make hasty decisions about something so important. Furthermore, I still have to discuss your case with Scott. We will talk after the youth group meeting.” 

Bobby stood up to shake Xavier’s hand, conscious that he was trying to impress the man. “Thank you, sir.” 

“You’re welcome, Robert. Go now. Ms. Murakami is getting anxious.” 

Bobby looked up but saw nothing through the closed door. “How do you know?” 

Xavier tapped his head. “I feel it, Mr. Drake. I feel it.” He smiled. “Let us go.” He set his wheelchair in motion, and Bobby ran ahead to open the door for him, almost slipping in a puddle of melted ice. 

Bobby surveyed the mess he had made and said, “Uh, I better get a mop!” 

Out in the lobby, the Professor called to Scott and the two of them vanished into a corner to talk. _About me?_ Bobby wondered. Scott looked over at him at one point and Bobby smiled back shyly, evoking no response from the “powerful mutant”. Disheartened, Bobby went to the front desk and asked for a mop and bucket. 

A few minutes later, as he was returning the gear, he caught sight of Andi quickly coming down the stairs with a worried look on her face. She ran up and grabbed both his hands, looking up into his eyes. 

“Are you okay, Bobby?” she said, a little out of breath. 

“I’m fine. Really.” He was a bit embarrassed as he remembered what she had witnessed. “I’m sorry if I scared you.” 

“Don’t worry about that! As long as you’re okay.” She looked down at his hands and suddenly dropped them as if they might explode in ice at any minute. 

“So I did scare you,” he mumbled glumly. 

Andi gave him a guilty look. “It’s not your fault. I mean, here we are setting up a meeting for mutants and I… I never really stopped to think what I might see today.” She looked back up at him and smiled. “I’m glad I had my freak out with my co-convenor and not with a stranger. So, thanks.” 

Bobby rolled his eyes and said, “If you still _want_ me for co-convenor…” 

“Of course,” she replied emphatically. “If you can trust me now, that is.” 

Bobby looked surprised. “Of course I trust you, Andi! You’re the whole reason I’m even here today!” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it. But if I’m stuck, I’m totally going to say, ‘And this is Bobby Drake, sending it back to the studio. Andi…?’” 

“Come on, let’s get upstairs,” she said laughing and they headed back to the staircase. At the first landing, Bobby turned to look back at the lobby and saw that many people were arriving for various seven o’clock meetings. Some were young, some old and he realized with a start that he had no idea which ones were mutants. More importantly, he realized the significance of that. 

Andi called him from the top of stairs and he turned and ran up to join her. 

 

Bobby felt a weird thrill as he looked around the circle of young people — a thrill made of equal parts terror _(Everyone knows I’m a freak!)_ and exhilaration _(All these kids are mutants like me!)._ And he could see that he wasn’t alone in feeling this confusion. 

To his right sat Mike, excited and smiling, Bobby’s anchor. Next to him was a small guy, maybe 14 years old, clutching his backpack tightly to his chest and worrying the straps constantly as he snatched nervous glances around the room. 

Beside him was Tonio, whose confidence had wavered once Andi had begun her welcome speech. Next to him was an empty seat which the Korean girl one seat over had asked be left open “for a friend”. 

Next to her was the girl Bobby had seen checking the schedule downstairs. Her kerchief was tightly secured and she sat very rigid in her chair, still wearing her spring coat. 

Beside her sat the most shocking mutant he had seen yet — a young man, maybe 19 with skin the color of a ripe tomato and strange fan-like growths near his almost flat ears which looked, Bobby thought, like gills. He had no jacket or hat and Bobby realized he must have walked to the Youth Center like that! For everyone to see! 

The girl beside him had her chair pulled up tight to his and she was tucked firmly under his arm, looking alert and wary. Bobby thought she must be his girlfriend. Was she a mutant at all? 

Then came Andi, whose professional cheer had an almost manic edge to it. At the beginning of the meeting, Bobby had tried to mimic her smile and tone, but it felt awful and forced. 

When it was his turn to speak, he had tried to just relax and be honest. He had told the group that he had only found out about his powers a few weeks ago and he had introduced Mike, who was sitting beside him, saying that without his friend helping him, he wouldn’t even be here. Most of the room had smiled nervously at Mike, but the red boy had just glared a little harder. _What was his problem?_ Bobby had wondered. 

Andi took the floor again. “In a while, I want to go around the circle and we can do some more introductions — whatever you want to say — but first we’re going to hear from a special guest.” She looked momentarily confused and checked her watch. “Tonio, could you run down and see if the Professor is here yet?” 

Tonio jumped up and opened the door. He looked down the corridor and then back to Andi. “Here they come,” he said and held the door open wide. The Professor wheeled in, smiling, looking around at the faces. Scott then appeared, but he remained in the doorway, also checking out the faces, but with none of the Professor’s cheer. Another security check, Bobby realized, and wondered, _Who would want to hurt Professor Xavier?_

_*Hello, Robert,*_ came the voice in his head and Bobby was startled for a second before he smiled at the old man. He felt kind of special, having this secret relationship with the guest of honor. 

Scott left the room, closing the door behind him. A space was made in the circle for the Professor’s wheelchair and Andi rose to speak. “Everybody, this is Professor Charles Xavier, an expert on, um, mutant-kind and our guest today.” 

“Thank you, Andi, and thank you all for letting me speak here. It is not my intention to intrude on your meeting, only to let you know how happy I am that such a meeting is even taking place.” 

The group’s reaction was definitely cautious. They had not expected anything so formal and were obviously suspicious of someone claiming to be an expert on mutants. The only “mutant experts” any of them had heard about were politicians sounding off in the press about the new and deadly threat. 

“I cannot tell you how much it means to me to see you all here today,” Xavier told the group. “When my mutation first manifested many years ago, I believed that I alone among the human race had such special gifts. But far from feeling blessed and unique, I felt terrified and singled out. Why had the universe made me different from my family, from my friends? How would I live with this secret? 

“Over the following decades, I met few mutants and we represented only the smallest fraction of humanity. But now something wonderful has happened, children. You have happened.” Bobby felt them all listening intently. “Mutants are suddenly manifesting in unprecedented numbers. This is a time of exhilaration and a time of challenge. We are too many to hide and we should not have to. We must leave the shadows and walk in the daylight. We have powers that can help make this a better world.” 

Bobby felt something in him like hope. His imagination moved. He saw himself in a burning building, extinguishing flames with sheets of ice, saving stranded children. His heart began to pound. 

Xavier paused and looked around the group slowly, holding each youth in his eye a moment. His voice deepened as he told them, “Do not let anyone tell you that you are monsters.” He looked at the boy with gills. “Do not believe that you are ugly.” The boy looked away, his brow furrowing. “For you are all beautiful and right. You are new expressions of nature, and the world cannot do without you.” 

He turned to the girl in the kerchief and coat and spoke gently. “My dear, would you be very, very brave and let us see you as you are?” She blushed and her head dropped. But then she raised it again and looked around the room. 

Rising to her feet, she undid her coat and let is slip off her back even as her hands flew up and swept off the kerchief. She wore a sleeveless t-shirt and from her arms, a network of iridescent, scintillating tissue formed a nimbus of light, like wings made of lacy flame. She shook her head to either side with an inhuman grace and more fans of light unfolded to form a headdress of living energy. The room danced in a gentle glow and Bobby felt a kind of peace descend on him as he watched the light. 

The feeling of peace seemed to be shared among everyone in the room and he suddenly felt that they were a community. This was the gift of her light. After a few more moments, the girl took her seat again, the light dimming but never quite vanishing. They heard the Korean girl sigh, and they looked to see her close her eyes and extend a hand towards the empty chair. Beside her, an exact twin appeared, though it was like a negative of her, dark where she was light and vice versa. The twins now sat holding hands, looking around the room as two independent beings. 

Tonio then took off his glasses, squinting in the light, to reveal his huge, sad eyes. After a few seconds, he put the glasses on again. Bobby wondered if he should make ice for them; or would that be showing off? He was saved from making a decision when the red boy’s girlfriend started crying and turned to bury her face in his chest. 

Xavier spoke up, “Please, don’t feel bad, any of you, if you do not wish to reveal your powers here. These are deep and personal parts of you that you have kept hidden for many years. Revealing them is something we must do only when we feel the time is right.” 

The red boy, holding his girlfriend tight, announced in a clipped, angry voice, “I never hid. And I never will. This world is mine as much as it is anybody’s and I’ll fight for my rights!” 

Bobby didn’t know what to say. Could he ever be that brave? Shouldn’t he be ready to fight, too? Did joining the Professor and Scott’s school mean that he would have to be a fighter? 

“Yes, you’re right,” Andi said, agreeing with the Professor. She looked around the room. “You all have the right to be who you are.” She turned to the red boy and said, “And I’m sure you’re not the only one in the room who has felt anger. That’s something we should take time to discuss today.” 

Smiling again, she said, “But now, I’d like to thank Professor Xavier for joining us and getting the meeting off to such an inspirational start.” 

“Thank you, Andi,” said Xavier. “I will leave you to your meeting. I trust that you will find in each other a source of strength. You are all _my_ inspiration.” He wheeled towards the door and, as if on cue, Scott opened it from outside and followed Xavier to the elevator. 

Bobby felt like running out after him and asking if they had decided to accept him in the school yet. But Xavier’s voice suddenly rang through him again: _*Robert, we will speak in private after your meeting._ * 

It was all he could do, given the confident authority of the telepathic voice, not to shout out, ‘Yessir!’ 

It was only when Tonio stood and closed the door that Andi seemed to truly relax for the first time. “Let’s go around the circle and introduce ourselves. Say as much or as little about your life as you wish. If you don’t want to say your name, please give us something we can call you. Bobby, why don’t you start?” 

 

The Korean girl, Lynn, reached out again and took the hand of her negative doppelganger. 

“She first appeared in my dreams when I was around 12,” Lynn began. Bobby could see it was hard for her to speak about, but the group had already achieved at least an initial level of trust. She gripped the negative hand tightly. “And then one day, I woke up and she was standing at the foot of my bed. It was super weird… because it seemed so normal. It’s like I had always been two, but hadn’t really realized it until that moment. Her name is Nyll.” 

Nyll smiled, an eerie negative smile of black teeth. Lynn spoke for both of them. “At first, she was just another me, but the longer she’s been around, the more individual she’s become. Now we sometimes even disagree on little things like what to wear and stuff. Or we have different opinions on who we should tell…” Her voice trailed off and they both looked down at their laps. 

“Who have you told?” Andi asked. 

“No one!” Lynn exclaimed. “Well, just my parents. I always tell them everything.” 

Bobby leaned forward in his chair and asked, “How’d they take it?” 

Lynn didn’t look up, but Nyll raised her head, watching as Lynn answered in small voice. “They were, um, scared of her. They said…” She caught her breath as if it were hard to say the words. “They said I could never tell anyone about Nyll. They-they said that they didn’t want to see her. Ever.” Lynn looked up at Bobby. Her eyes were wet. “They don’t understand. Nyll is their daughter, too. She’s part of me! And when they say that I have to hide that part —” 

“…It feels like they’re rejecting you, too. I know.” Bobby responded. Lynn and Nyll both nodded. 

The boy with the backpack, Ben, spoke up. “I haven’t told anyone yet. It’s easy for me to hide my powers, so I do. I wanted to tell my best friend. But just when I was going to I heard her saying these anti-mutie — I mean anti- _mutant_ — things and so I just shut up.” 

Derek, the tomato-skinned boy responded aggressively. “Why didn’t you tell her you didn’t want to hear that bullshit?” 

“I-I was afraid she’d figure out what I was if I said anything.” Ben seemed embarrassed by his answer as Derek scowled at him, gills flexing. 

“It’s not easy to tell,” said Bobby, trying to prevent a confrontation. “I’ve only told one person other than you guys and that’s Mike. He was really cool about it.” 

Lynn turned to Mike and asked, “Were you scared of Bobby when he told you?” 

Mike said, “No, no way.” 

But then he paused and thought about it more. “When, um, when Bobby told me he was a mutant, he was really sick… from his powers. And he didn’t seem scary at all. But, to be honest, there are times when I watch him… doing his stuff… and I think about how dangerous it could be…” 

Bobby looked at Mike sadly and told him, “I would never hurt you. You know that.” 

“I know,” Mike replied. “And that’s why I don’t really worry. Anyone can be dangerous, even if they don’t have powers. Humanity has done pretty well hurting each other for a long time without special powers.” 

The girl with the wings of light asked Bobby, “So does telling Mike mean you’ll be more comfortable telling the next person?” 

Bobby stammered, “Um, uh, I didn’t think about that yet. I guess, well, I guess it would depend on who it was. And I never really decided to tell Mike; he kind of figured it out.” 

“Wow,” said Derek. “What a portrait of courage, Bobby!” 

Bobby blushed and Andi said, “That’s not fair, Derek. You can’t judge people on how they handle such a personal decision.” 

“Maybe not,” he responded bitterly, “but I can tell you what it’s like when you have no choice. I can tell you what it’s like to be called names and attacked and threatened with your life.” 

“Amen, brother,” Tonio called out. 

“And yeah, it makes me angry,” Derek went on. “All you pretty little kids who can pass as normal. And I can call you chickenshit, too, because if I can stand it — if I can walk the streets everyday and just _take it_ — then I don’t see any excuse for hiding what you are! Humans want to hurt mutants. But if they try to hurt me, they’ll get hell of a fight!” 

“Hey!” Mike said, raising his voice, “Not all humans want… and what do you mean ‘humans’? Mutants are humans!” 

“Why are you even at this meeting?” Derek spat back at him. “How are we supposed to talk about what we’ve gone through when one of _you_ is sitting right here?!” 

Mike looked amazed. “Is that how _you_ feel?” He looked around the room. “Is that how you _all_ feel?” 

“No!” said Ben, quickly, embarrassed. 

But then Lynn looked down at her feet and said, “Yeah, kind of.” Mike turned to her and she continued. “I’m sorry; you’re really nice and everything, but it would be easier for me if you weren’t… here.” Nyll just shook her head though it wasn’t clear if she disagreed or was just feeling sad. 

There was a stunned silence and then Mike slowly got to his feet. 

Bobby was speechless and Andi quickly said, “Wait a minute, Lynn, I’m not a mutant either.” 

“I know,” Lynn said to her as Nyll stared at Mike, “But that’s different. You’re, like, the leader.” 

Mike said, “I’m just gonna go.” Andi started to object, but he raised his hand to stop her. “It’s okay… I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.” 

He left the room quietly, and no one but Andi and Nyll watched. The sense of community in the room seemed to splinter into shards of anger and shame. 

Bobby stared at the floor as he spoke, his voice tight with emotion: “That was wrong. He came here to support me. He came here because he didn’t care if I was a mutant or not; because I’m his friend!” He raised his head and glared at Derek. 

“He’s your friend _now_ ,” Derek told him with infuriating confidence, “But when they come to round us up, we’ll see if he’s ready go to the wall for you.” 

Bobby raised his voice saying, “Look, you can think whatever you like about me, but I won’t have you putting down everyone in this room and attacking my friend. You can’t call people ‘chickenshit’ just because they don’t act all arrogant like you! You can’t call people traitors when everything they’ve done proves their loyalty! You’re just a loud-mouthed bully and I won’t let you —” 

“Hold it!” Andi shouted. “We are here to support each other! Not to judge —” 

“Derek’s the one judging,” Lynn called back. 

Derek and Andi responded in unison, “I’m just saying —” 

“Hey!” came a sudden shout from the door and everyone turned in surprise to see a kid standing there, smoking. He was skinny — maybe even undernourished — and dressed in baggy clothes that were not exactly clean. His face, beneath long, rather greasy hair that reached down to his shoulders was smooth and almost angelic with prominent, full lips. But his large, deep blue eyes were full of devilish amusement and something perhaps darker — something not to be messed with. Under his arm was a battered leather folder that was all but exploding with loose scraps of paper. 

He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, exhaled a large puff of smoke and smirked, “Is this ‘Cancer?’” 

Stunned silence reigned for a moment before Andi answered, “No, this is —” 

“Just kidding,” he grinned at her, though the grin wasn’t meant to appease. “I’m here for the merry mutant meeting.” 

“Great!” Bobby burst out, finding himself unaccountably rattled. “Well, come on in and sit down, um…” he looked up at the boy for a name. 

“You can call me Pyro.” He held Bobby’s gaze with a kind of reckless courage. Something. Something in those eyes… Bobby’s mouth was suddenly dry and he couldn’t continue. 

“Hey, _Pyro_ ,” Tonio called out, looking pissed off. “No smoking in the building.” 

Pyro smiled back defiantly, holding the pose for a second before he dropped the cigarette to the floor, extinguishing it with a slow, deliberate squish. He squeezed himself through the gap between Lynn and Nyll and plopped himself down with regal carelessness in the seat vacated by Mike. 

“Sorry I interrupted,” he said. “Who was about to slug whom?” 

Bobby choked and almost burst out laughing, but then suppressed it when he saw Andi looking uncomfortable. 

“No one’s going to slug anyone, Pyro,” she said calmly. “The discussion was just getting a bit heated. It doesn’t mean we don’t all respect each other here.” 

Pyro smirked at that, but before he could say anything, Bobby jumped in: “Derek, I didn’t mean to attack you; I’m just saying you can’t know what other people are going through. I mean, you’re really brave — I can’t imagine just letting _everyone_ know I was a mutant. But I guess that means you have people at home and your school who, like, support you and don’t care you’re a mutant.” 

Derek crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a stony look. “I don’t have anyone. It’s just me and her. We don’t need anyone else.” He reached over and put his arm around his girlfriend. She looked at Bobby with a terrible sadness in her eyes. 

Bobby felt like he should have a response, but he didn’t know how to find words of sympathy for this intimidating guy who seemed to lord it over everyone. The rest of the room also seemed at a loss in the face of this portrait of tough isolation. 

But then Pyro spoke up. “So, it’s easy for you, then.” 

Derek, surprised, shot back, “Easy? You think I have it _easy?_ ” 

“Sure,” Pyro responded, the crooked smile back on his face. “If you have no one, you don’t have anyone to lose.” Bobby watched him carefully, impressed at how he could handle Derek. Then Pyro spun around to look at Bobby. He felt gooseflesh rising on his arms. “For instance, you — what’s your name?” 

“Uh, Bobby.” 

“So, ‘ _uh_ -Bobby’, do your folks know you’re a mutant?” 

“No.” 

“Why don’t you just go right home and sit them down in the living room. ‘Mommy, Daddy, I have something to say.’ How does that feel?” 

“I-I’d be scared. Scared I’d be bringing them more trouble. Or that they’d decide I was a freak instead of their son.” He and Pyro were locking eyes, just a few feet from each other. He felt the intensity of the boy’s gaze and he knew that he was really being listened to. Pyro swung back to Derek. 

“Hear that, Derek?” Pyro asked with easy assurance. 

Bobby suddenly understood the game and he turned to Ben and asked, “Ben how would you feel about letting your school friends know you’re a mutant?” 

Ben looked shocked even contemplating such a thing. “No way! They’d fucking kill me! There was this one kid who dressed really goth and they, like, hounded him until he left school. I have a lot of friends, but if I told them about me… I don’t even want to think… I mean, what if…” 

Bobby turned to Derek as he had seen Pyro do. “You see, Derek, he has a lot to lose.” 

Pyro grinned at Bobby and picked up the ball again, leaning forward in his chair. “And Derek — buddy — you have that hot girlfriend there who likes you and your bright red dick. But imagine that you’re this good-looking quarterback guy and you get all the chicks. Like non-stop pussy! Are you really going to throw that away by letting them know you have mutant sperm?” 

Andi quickly jumped in, “Okay, Pyro, we get your point, I think. You might want to remember that not everyone is comfortable with that kind of language.” Pyro smirked with mischievous triumph and leaned back in his chair. He turned and winked at Derek who was fuming. Bobby watched the combatants with a sense of vindication. Then he saw Tonio glaring at Pyro, jaw ridged and he felt a pang of worry for this new boy who seemed to invite trouble with a perverse glee. Pyro’s foot slid over and bumped against Bobby’s. He left it there. 

  

*** 

  

Mike had gone back down to the lobby and thrown himself onto one of the couches in a fit of hurt indignation. He tried to read one of the free newspapers that were scattered around the room, but he couldn’t concentrate. He read the same paragraph about a rockabilly singer who powered his amp with biodiesel three times before he threw the paper away in boredom. He tossed himself onto his back, covering his eyes with his forearm and relished a moment of oblivion. 

“You’re Bobby Drake’s friend, right?” came a voice above him. 

Mike uncovered his face and found himself looking up at the Professor’s bodyguard guy. 

“Um, Yeah. I’m Mike. Hi.” 

“I’m Scott, pleased to meet you.” 

Mike sat up. He found himself trying to see through the impenetrable crimson of the man’s glasses to the eyes below. 

“Mind if I have a seat?” Scott asked, sitting before he got the answer. “Why’d you leave the meeting?” 

“There was some debate,” Mike replied sullenly, “about whether non-mutants should attend the meeting at all.” 

“I see.” Scott looked sympathetic. “Don’t let it get you down. I hate that kind of navel-gazing stuff. I do my own soul-searching in private. How about you?” 

“I don’t know.” Mike looked at Scott closely. “Can I try on your glasses?” 

Scott pulled away as if Mike were about to reach out and grab them. “Please, be careful! It’s dangerous.” Mike drew his hand back, more curious than ever. “I’ll show you some time, okay?” he said, and Mike nodded. 

“Listen, Mike, the important thing is that you’re Bobby’s friend. It’s very important that he had the chance to meet the Professor. This day will change his life, and you made that possible because you stood by him. Even though he’s a mutant, you remembered that he’s your friend.” 

“Yeah,” Mike said, tilting his head. “I guess that’s what this day is really about. Not me getting into some meeting. I just felt left out.” 

Scott turned serious. “Mike, there’s a lot of anti-mutant hatred brewing in this country. Bobby and all the other mutants are going to need friends like you in their corner. Not just someone to talk to, but a friend that will stand up for them in public against anti-mutant laws and other kinds of hatred.” 

“I think you’re right. I’ve been bookmarking all the articles I can about anti-mutant laws. I’m going to do an essay on it for school next year. Maybe publish some stuff in the school newspaper.” 

“That’s awesome. You’re going to kick ass for us, aren’t you?” 

Mike stuck out his hand for Scott to take. “Yeah. Just watch me.” 

Breaking into a grin, Scott shook Mike’s hand firmly. “Now, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about Bobby?” 

 

*** 

  

“I’d like to go around the circle and hear what each of you hopes to get out of this group,” said Andi. 

As each one spoke, the feeling of community slowly returned. The kids were braver now than they had been when they arrived, and seemed to be there for each other. It was becoming, in fact, just the kind of meeting Bobby had hoped it would be. But as they spoke, Bobby’s attention kept wandering, and he would find himself glancing sideways at the skinny kid with the lame name. Did he live on the streets? How did he survive? He seemed really smart, but Bobby wondered if he even went to school. 

He watched Pyro watching the others. His concentration was intense, as if he were trying to memorize all their words. But as his turn to speak approached, Bobby saw something change in him. A cloud of sadness crossed over the pale face, and Bobby found himself wishing he could do something, anything, to bring back the confident smartass who had entered the room. 

When the circle reached Pyro, he was looking down at his feet. He sighed and said, without looking up. “Well, yeah. What’s to say, huh? I mean, it’s really the shits when you get down to it, isn’t it? We’re these amazing creatures. We’re like the best zoo anyone ever thought of. But who wants to be a fucking _lemur_ , right? Who even wants to be a komodo dragon? And they’re brilliantly awesome.” 

He raised his head, but stared up at the ceiling instead of at the others. “I go out into the park in the morning and all the newspapers are always there on some bench. And I start reading all the anti-mutant bullshit. Arguments that make no sense. I dunno, I guess some do. We can be dangerous, right? I can be dangerous for sure. And when I read that shit, I want to be! I want to destroy something then because _it’s not fucking fair!_ ” 

Bobby felt something crack in his heart. 

“And then I remember, oh yeah, ‘life’s not fair’. That’s, like, my _mantra_ , okay? So I suck it up and climb back inside.” He lapsed into silence. 

Andi quietly prompted him. “Pyro, tell us what you would like to get from this group. Try to imagine what kind of help would give you what you need the most.” 

Pyro looked up at her. A cold, calm mask seemed to descend on his features. “That’s just the thing, isn’t it? What do I want? The way I see it, it’s either got to be assimilation or war.” Bobby’s breath seemed to catch in his chest. Pyro continued, “And I haven’t figured out yet which side to choose.” He reached into his pocket and came up with a pack of cigarettes and a battered, shiny Zippo lighter. With smooth finesse, he lit up and hungrily sucked in the smoke. 

“Damn it, man,” said Tonio, losing his cool. “No smoking in the building!” 

Pyro’s head whipped around and his face darkened with anger. “Fuck you,” he snarled and flicked the cigarette in Tonio’s direction, but halfway through its arc, the cigarette exploded in a fireball and the ashes dropped to the floor in the center of the circle. 

There was a collective gasp, but before anyone could say anything, Pyro was on his feet and heading for the door. 

“Pyro, wait a minute!” Andi called after him, but he had already disappeared. 

Bobby suddenly found himself on his feet following Pyro out the door. 

“Bobby!” Andi called. 

Without stopping, he told her, “I’ll be right back! One minute!” 

When Bobby reached the top of the stairs, he could see Pyro on the landing, halfway down to the second floor. 

“Hold it!” he shouted, kind of desperately. And amazingly, the boy stopped and looked up at him as if he wasn’t really surprised. Bobby ran down the stairs to the landing and then stood awkwardly, unable somehow to gauge the appropriate distance he should keep from the boy. 

Pyro seemed to be pleasantly amused by his discomfort. He waited patiently for Bobby to speak. “Are you… Will you be coming back to the meeting next week?” 

Pyro smiled, “No, I don’t think so, Bobby. I think me and this group won’t ever share a wavelength.” 

Bobby felt his heart sink. “Do you, um, have a place to go? Do you live somewhere?” 

“Oh, I’m not on the street. The street’s for losers. We have a really great squat in this abandoned tenement.” 

“But what if I want to talk to you… I mean, if you needed something, I would try to help. If you were in trouble…” 

Pyro thought about this. “I can get on the ‘Net if I need to. You have an IM handle?” 

“Yeah,” said Bobby, enthusiastically. 

John opened his battered leather folder and pulled a pen from its spine. “Write it down over here. Okay, ‘b-cube,’ got it. Thanks.” 

They stared into each others’ eyes for a minute before Pyro smiled and spoke again. “I gotta head, Bobby, or Keever will be pissed. Here, I’ve got something for you,” Pyro said and searched briefly in the folder until he found a sheet of paper with something hand-written on it in green ink. He passed the sheet to Bobby, and then, surprisingly, blushed and looked down at his feet. 

Bobby took the sheet of paper almost reverently. A moment passed when neither moved. Then suddenly, Pyro looked up at him with his crooked smile back in place and winked before turning and running down the stairs, screaming like Tarzan. Bobby stood in stunned silence, feeling like the boy had left behind a lingering heat. 

_*Robert Drake?*_ Came the sudden voice in his head. Startled, Bobby looked around like he’d been caught. He then realized what the voice was and said out loud, “Um, yes Professor?” 

_*Scott and I have discussed it and we are pleased to offer you a place in next year’s classes at our School for Gifted Youngsters.*_

“Really?” he said excitedly, “Are you serious?” 

_*Indeed. It isn’t something I would joke about! Can you come downstairs and we will discuss the next steps?*_

Suddenly a voice came from above him. “Hey, Bobby!” said Tonio at the top of the stairs, looking down at him a bit strangely. Bobby wondered how long he’d been there. “Andi wanted me to get you. We’re going to finish up the meeting.” 

Bobby hesitated before saying, “Okay, coming!” With annoyance, he realized that Tonio was waiting for him, so he closed his eyes and tried to figure out how to speak with just his mind. 

_*Professor?*_

_*Very good, Mr. Drake, I can hear you. Go finish your group and meet us in the lobby afterwards. Congratulations, son.*_

Tonio called out, “You coming or what, man?” 

Bobby noticed the piece of paper still in his hands. 

“Go ahead, Tonio,” Bobby said. “I’ll be there in one minute.” 

Tonio shrugged his shoulders and left. Bobby turned to look at the message in green ink. He saw that it was a poem. It read: 

Deepest Burrow   
Fire is singular  
There is only one and  
When it meets itself in a  
House at night  
   The family running  
   The parents and the screaming child  
   Teddy in hand  
Or in the forest  
   The animals flying or failing  
It pulls itself to itself  
And it is one again  
With itself 

But if fire had a friend  
If fire found another  
In the last box within a box  
In the farthest closet in the house  
Or in the deepest burrow in the woods  
Would it treasure that little life  
Or would it consume? 

_St. John Allerdyce, 4/23_


	5. A Sort of Homecoming

“Bobby probably told you that his father and I have been going through some difficult times,” Madeline announced, leaning forward confidentially, though not lowering her voice at all. 

Professor Xavier looked startled for a moment before replying, “No, Mrs. Drake, he hadn’t mentioned anything …” 

“Madeline, please,” William Drake muttered from his remote corner of the living room couch. “I’m sure the Professor doesn’t want to hear about our marital issues.” 

“William, there’s nothing to be ashamed of!” she proclaimed. She looked back at Xavier. “We’re in couples counseling now, and our therapist is very hopeful our marriage can be saved. More tea, Professor?” 

Bobby, sitting by himself on the loveseat, wanted to lift up the cushion, stick his head under it and hide like he had done as a three year old. It had only been a week since he had met Charles Xavier and Scott Summers, and now they were here in his family’s living room. The whole scene could definitely be classified as “surreal”. 

Part of him felt like there had been a clean break from his old life the day he had left home to stay at Mike Haddad’s house. Bobby had, in those few weeks, accepted that he was a mutant, shared that information with his best friend, met Andi Murakami and a roomful of young mutants in New York, and been offered a chance for a new future at the nascent School for Gifted Youngsters. 

But now, back in the suburbs of Boston, he had the sickening feeling that it was all an illusion. He was back in his claustrophobic life as Bobby Drake, fucked-up son of a fucked-up family, going nowhere quickly. His dad now seemed to be going on some rant about how hard it was to communicate with teenagers, and the Professor just kept nodding sympathetically. Bobby felt like he had trapped his would-be teacher in his parents’ crazy clutches. 

Looking away from the carnage, he saw Scott, standing in the doorway of the living room out of his parents’ line of vision, waiting patiently. The man always seemed to be on alert, scanning the room and glancing out the window. What kind of threat was he so concerned about? How dangerous could the life of an old psychology professor be? 

Watching Scott and the Professor, Bobby thought back to the previous Tuesday night. He wished he was back in New York now with Andi, helping her at the mutant youth meeting that was going on there without him. He wondered who had come back tonight. Lynn? Derek? Not Pyro, certainly. His stomach did something acrobatic when he thought about the skinny boy with the long hair. Pyro had said he wouldn’t return… but what if he did and Bobby wasn’t there? 

For the past week, Bobby had stayed on IM as much as possible, hoping for a message. He had read Pyro’s poem again and again, trying to find the smart, quarrelsome boy in its lines. Despite the guy’s reassurances, Bobby kept him imagining lost in the gutters of New York, hungry and vulnerable. He wanted to find him and help him. Maybe bring him to Mike’s — or better yet, to Xavier’s. 

The poem had been signed, “St. John”. He _had_ to be the same one who had shown up with that “green girl” poem in the 2Gether chatroom. The coincidence was too much to believe. Ockham’s razor, Mike would have said. Bobby even logged into the 2Gether chatroom a couple of times to see if Pyro had returned there. Feeling like a traitor, Bobby had assumed a new alias for those sessions since he didn’t feel ready to face Gina and the others as “Mutant Bobby”. But he had been right to think Pyro wasn’t going back there again, either. The guy seemed to be an expert at burning bridges. 

Bobby wondered if he could discuss the whole situation with Scott. And as if he could hear Bobby’s thoughts (he wasn’t a telepath, though; Bobby had asked!), Scott’s attention suddenly turned to him. Bobby kind of flinched, but then the man in the red shades lit up his million-watt smile. Bobby smiled back shyly and rolled his eyes, apologizing for his parents. Somehow, this small exchange made him feel he was part of Xavier and Scott’s team, not the Drakes’. He sat up a little straighter as the Professor took back control of the conversation. 

“As I was saying, it is my hope that Robert will join us in Westchester this September.” 

William flipped open the glossy booklet again. “Your brochure is very impressive, Professor Xavier. I’m sure you will be running an excellent program. Forgive me if it’s a little hard to imagine Bobby there. He’s a good kid and all, but he’s been struggling quite a bit at school this year, and I worry that he’ll feel overwhelmed, surrounded by, um, all those ‘gifted’ kids.” 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open a bit. _So, Dad thinks I’m a loser! But what if he has a point?_ he wondered. _What if I make a total fool of myself?_

Xavier was unruffled by the statement. “Frankly, I’ve been very impressed by Bobby from the first time we came in contact. He showed great initiative in finding our school online and he showed poise and self-confidence in arranging our meeting in New York.” Bobby felt himself glowing as Xavier sang his praises to his parents, even if most of what he said was a cover story. 

Before this meeting, Xavier had asked Bobby if it was the right time to tell his parents about himself and the true nature of the school. But the prospect had made Bobby’s heart race like a rabbit. If such a time could ever come, it certainly wasn’t now. 

“Since then,” Xavier continued. “I have seen qualities of leadership in the young man that I value most highly.” 

Madeline moved closer to her husband and squeezed his arm. “I told you that you underestimate the boys, William. Bobby’s always been a leader! Remember how he used to get all the children in the playground into these big parades? Banging their cooking pots as they marched in circles.” 

Bobby dropped his head in his hands, whimpering, “Mom, please! Can we leave kindergarten out of this?” 

_*Don’t worry, Robert,*_ Xavier reassured him in his head while never looking away from the Drakes. _*The meeting is actually going very well.*_

Bobby squinted his eyes and concentrated, sending to the Professor, _*That’s terrific. If I survive the next hour, I’m sure I’ll have a great time at your school.*_

 

*** 

 

John had been sitting on a low brick wall across from the Midtown Youth Center in Manhattan for almost 90 minutes. His butt was flat, he was hungry and the same homeless guy had asked him for change three times in half an hour. Once more and John was going to scare him off with a flame hawk. Not that he could really make the flames look like a hawk yet; he rarely had enough privacy to practice his new skills and when he did, he used up precious lighter fluid that he couldn’t afford to replace. 

Goddamn Keever never trusted him enough to give him pocket change. He realized that it wasn’t so much stinginess on the boss’s part as it was a way to control him. But without Keever, John knew he’d be fucked. He’d be peddling his ass in the bowery and probably already be a junkie. The thought frightened him even more now than it had when he had first run away from home, because now he had seen boys like that. He lived with some of them. 

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he asked a passing woman. “Do you know the time?” She was the type John went to when he needed something — plump, comfortably and colorfully dressed, with cropped hair and John Lennon glasses that suggested a radical youth which had mellowed into liberal middle age. She was the kind of person who wanted to do something for a lost boy like him. Young chicks and old women alike assumed he was out to hustle them. Men didn’t trust him regardless of age. 

She looked at John and then at her watch. “It’s a quarter to eight.” She then furrowed her brow and looked him up and down, as if figuring what else she could do for the lost young angel. 

“Oh, wow,” he responded with sitcom charm. “Mom’ll have dinner on the table already; I better go.” 

The woman seemed relieved and hurried off. John sank a bit in despair. He had been there since 5:30. He had seen definite mutants and possible mutants coming to the Japanese chick’s tea party. That little kid Ben and the girl Lynn with the scary, dark twin had come back and, surprisingly, the red asshole Derek with his silent, emo girlfriend. But no Bobby. _What the fuck?_ John wondered. _Isn’t this his little group, too?_

John wanted to kick himself. Why did he even care about some rich suburban brat in a Gap shirt? But there was something about Bobby. Some potential for passion hiding under the scrubbed freckles. And something so fucking touchable about that long, fit body that moved with such jerky determination. 

But now the fucking, stupid, useless asshole hadn’t even shown up. Keever had been suspicious last week and now it was the second Tuesday in a row John was coming in late. His mind raced for reasonable excuses that didn’t include mutant powers and youth groups. He felt his stomach clench and not just from hunger. John was proud of his ability to charm Keever with his words and his body, but he had no illusions about the man’s potential for violence. He had seen if often enough even if he had rarely experienced it personally. 

John jumped off the wall and grabbed his leather folder. In all the time he’d spent there, he’d written nothing useful. All the scraps of poetry coming out of him were lame and sentimental lately. He had even wasted a whole page practicing his signature for book signings: _Thanks for coming! St. John Allerdyce._ What a loser. He tucked the folder under his arm and ran for the bus that was pulling in to the stop half a block away. 

He climbed on board the crowded vehicle, trying to slip in unseen behind a group of Hasids digging into their black coats for their Metrocards. He was almost halfway down the bus when he heard the driver call back, “Hey, speedy, get back up here and pay your fare!” 

John tried to act nonchalant as if the words were meant for someone else, but as he looked around, he saw passengers glaring at him. 

“I’m not moving this bus until you pay,” the driver continued, which turned the glaring commuters into a mob ready to lynch him. John cursed under his breath and made his way up, pushing past hot, unyielding passengers. For show he dug into his pockets and came up empty. 

“Sorry man, I can’t do the fare,” he said and winked with casual familiarity. “I’ll put in double next time. Promise.” 

The driver appeared to be immune to his charms. “If you can’t pay, get off my bus.” 

“Look, buddy,” John continued, growing more assertive. “This is a public vehicle and society hasn’t seen fit to employ me. So I guess it owes me this ride!” 

A chorus of voices from the bus began shouting, “Get off!” and “Don’t hold us up here, punk!” 

Outraged, John turned towards the mob. “You idiots! I have all the makings of a _serious_ juvenile delinquent! You want me loose on the streets? It is in all your best interests to get me home as quickly as possible!” A large man with smoldering eyes rose from his seat and came lumbering at him. John figured the guy had at least 100 pounds on him and he backed toward the front doors of the bus slowly, reaching into his pocket to finger his lighter. 

The driver clapped a meaty paw on John’s shoulders and turned him towards the door. A shove in his back and he was stumbling down the steps. The doors closed behind him and the bus pulled away. Furious, John turned and screamed at the retreating vehicle. 

“Fuck you, motherfuckers! You don’t do this to Pyro!” He flicked a flame into life and whipped it up into a baseball of fire. He was itching to throw a fiery fastball, and he imagined the bus igniting, the passengers screaming and tumbling from the doors like staggering torches. But already his control was slipping and the fire form lost its coherence. 

“Shit,” he mumbled as the flame ball vanished on the breeze. Shuddering, he bent over, breathing out the anger, releasing the heat, a feeling of hopeless despair rising with the steam from his palm to fill the evening void. Now he was going to be totally fucking late. He began to run, his worn sneakers slapping the sidewalk, his folder clasped tight to his chest. 

 

*** 

 

William Drake was frowning at the printout Xavier had pulled from the handsome, leather briefcase. 

“That’s a lot of money, Professor,” Bobby’s father said with a dark air of finality. 

Xavier seemed unruffled and continued to smile with warm confidence. “I think you’ll find our tuition is not out of line with that of other schools offering the kind of rigorous program we do. We have excellent facilities and an extremely favorable teacher-to-student ratio.” 

Madeline was looking worriedly at her husband. “William, I know it’s not small figure, but don’t you think the opportunity —” 

“Madeline, Professor,” he said wearily, “It’s not a matter of whether it’s a fair price or not; it’s a matter of what this family can afford.” 

Her voice took on a hard edge. “What this family _cannot_ afford is to go on the way we have! We need a chance for a future and if Bobby has made such an impression on such an illustrious…” 

A fuse seemed to have been lit, and it suddenly seemed that the battling Drakes were going to explode into one of their cataclysmic exchanges right there and then. Professor Xavier looked ready to wheel back from Ground Zero and Bobby felt shame course painfully through his body. Somewhere inside, he could feel his powers stirring and he gritted his teeth, thinking, _Not now! Not now!_

But suddenly Scott Summers’ clear, sure voice cut through the air. 

“I have a proposal, Mr. and Mrs. Drake.” 

The room grew suddenly quiet. All eyes turned to Scott. The Drakes blinked as if they had forgotten he was there. Bobby had the sudden image of him as a mountain lion, waiting patiently in the corner for his prey to wander innocently past. He felt the tide of his powers subside. 

Scott moved towards the group and sat down on the loveseat beside Bobby who scooted aside to give the man space. The Drakes were watching him warily, trying to find somewhere to look in the face without eyes. 

“We have a busy summer ahead of us preparing the school for its first students,” Scott began. “And from what I can see of his transcripts, Bobby needs some remedial help if he wants to be on par with them.” This seemed to embarrass his father, and Bobby felt another twinge of shame. 

“If Bobby can move to Westchester for the summer, he can work with us to prepare the school. He will receive a salary in the form of a tuition reduction. Furthermore, I will supervise extra-curricular tutoring, at no cost to you, so that he can catch up with the studies he missed during your family’s…” he paused ever so slightly, “…difficulties this past year.” 

Bobby watched with satisfaction as his parents looked at the floor guiltily. 

Xavier tapped the arm of his wheelchair as if considering whether to accept his protégé’s suggestion. He nodded slowly and said to Scott, “It sounds like a solution that would benefit all parties, Scott.” He then turned to Bobby. “What do you think, Robert? It would be a challenging summer! You’d wake up early with us and do physical labor or clerical work in the morning. Then, after lunch, you’d have to hit the books. Seriously. With regular testing.” 

Scott nodded. “Are you up for it, Bobby?” 

Bobby was kind of stunned. He didn’t think of the work; he didn’t think of the study. All he could think was _Leave here? Live in Westchester for the summer? In a mansion full of mutants?_

“Yes, sir! I’m ready!” 

His father seemed to wake up suddenly. “Now, wait a minute, that still doesn’t answer all of our —” 

“Oh, William!” Madeline snapped at him. “How many generous offers are you going to turn down? How many more doors are you going to close on your son’s future?” 

There was a tense moment of silence during which another argument — a final and decisive one — could have erupted. But his father didn’t seem to be able to muster the strength again. Just like that, Bobby knew the battle was won. Scott Summers had saved the day. Bobby Drake, the Iceman was going to be a student at the School for Gifted Youngsters. 

 

*** 

 

The late May sky still showed streaks of orange and lilac above him, but the alleyway John was picking his way through was already dark and filled with unnamable shadows that made him twitch and sweat. He pulled his lighter out of his pocket, ready to use it if he was attacked. Not that it made him feel all that safe. 

His ‘frightening mutant abilities’ as the _Times_ might call them were unreliable at best and laughable at worst. He had the stubborn conviction that if he could just practice he would be able to conjure 30-foot dragons of flame to fly through the sky and descend on his enemies, consuming them utterly for the foolish crime of challenging Pyro. But now he might just as easily get stabbed while desperately trying to whip up a flaming pigeon. 

At the end of the alley was a loose section of chain link that he pulled aside to gain access to the airshaft of the abandoned building he called home. The grimy square was filled with junk and alive with the shiftings of rats and roaches. It was not a place he liked to be alone after dark. Really, he wasn’t very experienced with the urban jungle he had found himself stranded in and, more than anything, he feared losing his place in the gang. He feared being at the mercy of the streets. In other words, he needed Keever and the protection he offered. 

Maybe Keever wouldn’t care or even notice he was late. After all, it was a tense time for the business. Another gang from the nearby projects was making viable threats on their territory. They were already snatching customers and if Keever didn’t show some force soon and decisively, there was going to be war. 

Of course, that wouldn’t directly involve John. He was no foot soldier — neither a dealer nor an enforcer. His role was more personal. But if Keever was gone, John would be lost too. 

He climbed through a window without glass and moved down the dank corridor that echoed with remnants of past lives. Ahead, he saw the glow of the gang’s common room where makeshift lighting from a tapped power line gave the group of runaways and young thugs some sense of home and shelter. 

John straightened his shoulders and swaggered into the room with a sneer already in place. He was small and too pretty, he knew. Without Keever at his side, his arrogance was his only defense. This confident mask was a skill he had learned after his mother had married the man he thought of as The-Calamitous-Asshole-I’m-Going-to-Fry-One-Day. 

Inside he found maybe eight gang members, some sleeping, some busy at tables weighing and packaging merchandise. Various eyes turned to look at him and most returned to their tasks without a word. 

Most. 

“Look, it’s Princess Joanna,” shouted a mean 17-year-old who called himself Chisel. John suspected the nickname was a reminder of the tool he had been lobotomized with. 

John kept moving, hoping to avoid a fight. He wanted to get across the common room to the bedroom that was Keever’s inner sanctum, a room John alone had the right to enter in the boss’s absence. Still, John couldn’t stop himself from saying as he passed, “That’s clever, Chisel. Why don’t you go back to practicing the alphabet song?” 

Chisel was behind him now, but John could actually hear him smile. “You’re going the wrong way, Princess. I think you should hit the road and quick, because Keever’s not going to be nice when he sees you.” 

John’s brain told him _Keep moving! Don’t turn around!_ but John had a bad habit of not listening to his brain. He stopped and turned and, yes, the miserable punk _was_ smiling. John couldn’t keep the damn tremor out of his voice: “What are you t-trying to say, you fucking caveman?” 

He felt the figure loom up suddenly behind him, but before he could turn, duck or run, a large, strong hand grabbed him painfully by the neck. He was spun around and pushed up hard against the wall, the pressure on his throat steady. His portfolio fell from his hands and loose sheets flew from it like shreds of chaos. 

“Where the fuck have you been, Johnny?” Keever growled at him, bringing his face in close. It was a face John liked to stare at, though usually under better conditions. It was long and bony with a prominent jaw. The nose of the 24 year-old boss was aquiline and he wore a long mane of ginger hair. But it was his eyes John liked best. They were intelligent and large and they could penetrate you, expose your layers. John enjoyed the strip tease Keever’s eyes made him do — layer by layer slowly falling away — feeling the thrill of keeping back his essence while flirting with the temptation to give himself away completely. 

But that was not now. Now those eyes were wild and dark with fury. The hand on his throat pressed tighter. 

“Where, Johnny?” 

John was trying to answer, but he could only choke and struggle. Maybe Keever realized this, realized he had lost control — a sign of weakness he tried to avoid in front of his troops — and he suddenly let go of him. John fell to the floor and rolled away from Keever, gasping for breath on his hands and knees. As he pulled himself together, he watched Keever’s dirty boots to see if they were going to kick him or stalk away. 

John willed himself to roll over. He had to get back control of this situation before something worse happened. As quickly as he could, he gathered the scraps of paper and pulled them back into his portfolio before pulling himself up the wall, shaking with fear. The eyes of all the gang members were on him now. Some, apparently, found the scene funny, but the smarter ones were watching to see how the conflict would play out. In any pack, the dogs always have to watch the challenges carefully. 

Finally finding his voice, trying to get the right balance of submission and annoyance, John sputtered, “Jeezus, Keev! What are you doing? I was just out walking. You got it all wrong.” 

Keever’s jaw was working. He suddenly snapped his head around and called out to the others, “Mind your goddamn business and get back to work. I need the shipment packed and ready in two hours.” 

He grabbed John by the upper arm and yanked him forcefully towards the door of his private room. “Get in here,” he snarled. 

In the small, airless room that smelled of sweat and rotting plaster, Keever threw John down on the dirty mattress and slammed the door. The tall man stayed by door, tight with anger, staring down at John who pushed himself against the wall, trying not to look too scared. 

Keever was visibly trying to keep his anger in check. He liked to throw the word “zen” around a lot, but John doubted he had ever formerly studied anything about the discipline. John watched him carefully as he finally managed to speak. “Out for a fucking walk for four hours. Last Tuesday, this Tuesday, same time. Do I look like an idiot, Johnny?” 

“You’re not an idiot, Keev,” John said carefully, trying not to whine. “I never said you were an —” 

“So don’t lie to me, you piece of shit,” Keever growled. “You’re supposed to be smarter than those fuckwits out there.” The boss had achieved his state of control but John knew he wasn’t safe yet. “Now tell me and don’t bullshit.” 

But John knew he had to lie his ass off. The mutant card was a wild one and Keever was under enough pressure. He might fear a mutant would be a threat to his leadership. He might just fear a mutant in general and feel the need to squash him like a bug. John’s brain whirled, and then he spoke carefully and, he hoped, convincingly. 

“He’s just this med student, Keever. Or resident or whatever.” 

The man’s face darkened and John knew he was up on the tightrope now, balanced precariously over a pit of flaming alligators. 

“He fucking you?” Keever asked, his voice hoarse. 

“No! I just… He just likes to watch me jack off. It’s nothing.” He looked up at Keever, his face a picture of guilelessness. “Honest.” 

Keever looked away at the corner of the room, tense, unreadable. “What’s he paying you for the show, Johnny?” 

“Nothing! It’s bullshit. Just like ten bucks. I told him I’m not going back again. And then I went out and got some dinner,” John paused, but Keever didn’t look his way. “I swear it, Keev.” 

“Ten bucks,” Keever said, with a sad kind of laugh. “You little asshole. If I wasn’t watching over you, you’d be the cheapest whore in the meat-packing district.” He let himself fall back against the wall and slowly lowered himself to the floor. John breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, _Damn, I’m good._ Keever believed him. He could see it. Hell, he had started to believe his own story. 

“Don’t see him again, Johnny,” Keever said with quiet menace. “You hear me?” 

“Yes, Keev,” Johnny breathed submissively. “I promise.” 

“I need to know I can trust you,” he said, watching now with that intensity that made John kind of tingle inside, that made his dick hard. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen with the business. Half the time I think I’m going to take over the whole area, and the other half I can practically feel the knife in my ribs. 

“It’s that damn guy Nikkatyne! That old motherfucker is behind this action from the projects; I know he is.” Keever looked over at him now, confiding, trusting him again. “I’m not going to let him beat us, Johnny. I’ll do whatever it fucking takes!” 

John started to stand up, intending to cross to Keever and tuck himself under his arm. But Keever suddenly commanded, “Stay where you are.” 

He sank back down, nervous, excited. The familiar game was beginning. 

Keever shook out his ginger hair and then brushed it back on his head. He closed his eyes and sighed. His eyes opened again and there was something new there. The hunger. Looking across the room at John, Keever slipped a hand into his shirt and began playing with a nipple. 

“Take off your shirt, Johnny. Yeah, that’s nice. Go slow. Put your hands on your head a minute. Yeah, like that. Just like that. Your hands… run your hands all over, yeah, nice, really feel yourself. Fuck, you like that, don’t you? You got fucking goose bumps. You’re mine, right Johnny? No one else gonna take care of you like I do, right? 

“Show me now, Johnny. Open your pants and show me. Oh man, you are hot. So hard, so hot. My fucking little volcano.” 

Keever’s voice grew more fervent, hoarse. “Fuck. Turn around. Get on your hands and knees. Yeah, just like that…” 

 

*** 

 

Two weeks into June and the summer heat had already arrived. Bobby sat with Mike Haddad in the richly manicured lawn of the Haddad backyard, sipping coffee, feeling very adult. It was a moment of simple peace in a roller coaster of a week. At times, it felt to Bobby like a ride he maybe shouldn’t have boarded. In just a few short days, he would be on his way to Westchester and he was plagued by doubts and by the sense that he was becoming involved in events that were way more significant than he was ready for. 

On top of everything, he was still recovering from the existential horror of last night’s family farewell dinner. Legal Seafoods was the place his parents always went on their anniversary and it was supposed to be a special honor that the kids were being taken there. But Ronny had spent the night sulking and his dad had mostly done the same except when he would make sudden, out-of-context pronouncements about how Bobby mustn’t waste this opportunity with his moodiness and his laziness. 

Mostly, the evening had been a showcase for his mother and her endless, cheery stream of news about couples therapy. 

“Boys, there’s so much you could learn from this process, too. I’m just beginning to understand how many years your father and I have wasted in passive-aggressive feedback loops! I now understand that the most important thing a person can do is to make her _life shopping list_ and then see how she can make that trip to market with her life partner and with respect for his own list! Metaphorically, of course.” 

Bobby had kept sneaking glances at his father during these monologues but he seemed to have nothing to add, instead spending his time chasing scallops around his plate with his fork. Ronny had been told three times to put away his PSP but, in the end, their parents had just let him play. 

What were they celebrating at this celebratory dinner, Bobby had wondered. Perhaps his departure just represented one less distraction in the quest for familial peace. 

Now, in the morning light with his best friend, he supposed he should be laughing at his family’s pathetic grappling and congratulating himself on his escape. But a significant part of him just wanted to turn everything around and stay in Boston where the misery was at least familiar. 

“What if my dad’s right, Mike?” he whined. “What if all the other students are, like, brilliant and I’m just barely keeping up? What if they all have amazing powers like flight and teleportation and seeing the future, and I’m just this… this ice-cube tray?!” 

Mike didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything, in fact. He sipped his coffee and watched a robin move slowly across the lawn, poking the ground for breakfast. Bobby furrowed his brow, waiting for some sign that the last friend he had in this old life understood his troubles and commiserated. 

Without even turning, Mike quietly asked, “Do you know what Proposition 18 is?” 

“No,” he replied somewhat resentfully, wondering why his friend was talking politics again. 

“It’s a bill being drafted by Senator Robert Kelly of Illinois.” Mike turned to look at Bobby with great seriousness, and Bobby felt suddenly worried. “Kelly thinks it’s time mutants were brought out of hiding — counted, documented, and registered with the government. He wants to know who does what and how much of a threat they pose to the American people. 

“He’s been evasive about what he would do with mutants the government considered dangerous, but he didn’t flinch when asked about detention, medical intervention and sterilization. He said, and I quote, ‘It’s too early to reject any reasonable means we might employ to preserve our safety from these new invaders.’” 

Bobby sat up in shock. “Invaders? We didn’t come here from Mars! We’re Americans the same as he is! God, Mike, don’t even tell me this shit!” 

Mike put down his mug in the grass and suddenly leaped up and jumped on Bobby, pinning his hands over his head. “Yes, Bobby, that’s the point. Mutants are Americans, too. It’s time you stopped worrying about whether you’re going to be a straight-A student at Xavier’s school. It’s time you stopped worrying whether you’re going to fit in with the kids. Whether you’re going to be _popular_.” 

Bobby struggled to get free, but Mike put all his weight on him, pinning him to the ground. 

With Bobby grunting in frustration, Mike continued in the same calm tone as before. “You and the other mutants are going to come under attack. Some are going to be forced out of hiding by new laws and some are going to stand up out of principle to fight for their rights. I’m going to be fighting, too, Bobby. I make that promise to you. I’m going to stand up in public and remind the people at the school, in this city, that mutants are their neighbors and their loved ones and that mutant rights are human rights. 

“But, Bobby, you’ll be in the thick of it. You’re going to have to face the hatred head on and you’ll have to be strong. That’s what you’re going to be doing in Westchester. Do you understand that?” 

Bobby nodded mutely, and Mike suddenly let go of his arms and rolled off of him to lie in the grass by his side, their arms touching. 

Bobby saw that Mike’s brow was beaded with sweat under his dark curls. The heat didn’t bother Bobby. He had discovered that he could simply lower his body temperature a few degrees and remain comfortable. He loved Mike — like a brother or maybe something more — but Bobby suddenly felt the gulf between himself and the ordinary human being beside him. And close as they were, it made him feel even more alone. 

He looked up at the clear blue sky and imagined super beings flying through it. Human and mutant — they were all living in a world now where the impossible would become ordinary. How could there be people who wanted to stop that? He couldn’t believe it! 

Then Mike was standing above him, offering a hand. 

“Get up, Bobby; my mom’s going to take us out for breakfast. She wants to thank you for keeping me out of trouble while they were away.” There was a moment of incredulous silence before they burst out laughing. 

Bobby took the proffered hand and got to his feet. He turned away from Mike and tucked in his shirt, surreptitiously adjusting his dick, which had stiffened during Mike’s assault. Turning back, he noticed the sweat starting to stain Mike’s t-shirt and quipped, “Here you go, hot stuff!” He raised his arm and began pelting Mike with a fine shower of ice pellets that made his friend shout and squirm. 

Two days later, the roller coaster turned its lowest and sharpest corners and it was time to leave Boston. Down at the base of the driveway, Scott waited beside a shining blue Mazda with delicious detailing that had taken Bobby’s breath away when he had pulled up in it. Bobby’s bags were packed in the trunk, minus his beloved snowboard which he had decided to leave at the last minute. On one level, he was trying to be practical and not overburden himself with junk. On another, he was leaving an anchor here at his family home so he couldn’t drift too far. 

Bobby and his parents stood at the front door like clots of curdled milk. They were trying to find words neutral enough to avoid setting off the booby-traps they had planted in each other’s hearts over the years. 

Bobby looked past his mother’s shoulder through the open front door to Ronny who stood awkwardly across the foyer. He threw his little brother a small smile, but Ronny turned away, breaking his heart all over again. 

“Make us proud, son,” his father finally said, perhaps trying to bring the awkward meeting to a close. 

Before Bobby could answer, Ronny shouted from inside, “Oh my God, it’s Tabitha!” 

Sure enough, there was the missing cat, looking well-fed and sleek despite her six week absence, sitting by the foyer table where Madeline Drake sorted the mail each morning. The cat meowed brightly and proceeded to run up the stairs to the second floor followed by Ronny. The Drake parents hesitated a moment and then ran after their younger son, forming the tail end of an absurd parade. 

Bobby wanted to follow, but he couldn’t seem to find impetus to move. He felt like he didn’t belong anymore in that particular parade — that he had no place in the joyous reunion. 

Then Scott was there beside him, putting an arm companionably over his shoulder. As he climbed into the passenger seat, Bobby took a last look up at the window of Ronny’s room and watched his brother and his parents fussing over and stroking the prodigal. 

 

*** 

 

The sunlight was sneaking around the blue curtains that were tacked over the windows. John had pulled them from the garbage last week, and he felt they gave the miserable room some sense of peace and hope. 

_I’m a fucking housewife,_ he laughed to himself. _The Drug-Lord’s Decorator: a memoir by St. John Allerdyce._

The heat of the day was already sneaking into the room. He knew the city would be an oven today and the old building would offer damn little by way of protection. John wondered how cold it would get in the winter. He kicked off the dirty top sheet and curled in against Keever’s body, feeling the delicious slide of skin on skin that always made him feel better. Keever stirred and he hoped he wouldn’t wake up. Not yet. Because once Keever was up, the stress would start and John would find himself wondering if he should really be here at all. But he didn’t know where the hell else to go. 

_bcube_ . 

Stupid Bobby’s lame IM name flashed into his head and he quickly dismissed it. _Fantasy is fine,_ he reminded himself, _but prep boys don’t take street kids home to mom and dad. Time to pull the plug on that particular daydream and get real._

Besides, he had Keever, whose strength was his protection. And he knew he made Keever’s life better. He was the boss’s solace when it was all coming apart. And it _was_ all coming apart. Nikkatyne and his gang were sure to notch up the turf war, and when that happened, people were going to start dying. John made a mental note to stay on the sidelines as much as possible.He watched Keever breathing and emitting little snorts from time to time. _You would never hurt me_ , he thought at him. _You love me._ The bruises on John’s throat and the one on his hip were nothing. Nothing he couldn’t handle. If only Keever and him could get out of this bullshit situation… Maybe they could escape if things got bad and make a life for themselves somewhere. In California, maybe. 

The light was getting stronger now, the sleeping man more restless. John felt his heart beat faster. 


	6. Possible Unlikelies

Andi Murakami had been raised to be a good girl. She had spent a lot of her energy excelling at school and making clear-eyed, career-minded decisions. She was proud of the fact that she had accomplished these goals while contributing to just causes and helping those in need — at least those she had some competency to help. She did these things for herself, she knew; but she also did them to please her parents. She knew that even if they died in a car accident the next day, she would still be trying to please them. Or perhaps, more importantly, not to disappoint them. 

Along the way, she had collected additional surrogate parents. These, too, she tried never to let down. Now one of them was waiting patiently and curiously for her to speak. 

Andi sat in her accustomed chair in the Ellen Rotenberg’s office at the Psychology Department of Columbia University. Professor Rotenberg had been her teacher and mentor for five years and was now her Master’s supervisor. The cushiony chair’s well-worn embrace and the soothing effect of the Professor’s excellent Darjeeling tea served to take some of the edge off Andi’s anxiety. She had a hard decision to make. 

“How is your writing going, Andi?” Rotenberg inquired gently. “I was expecting to see more from you last month.” 

“That’s sort of what I want to talk to you about, Ellen,” she began tentatively. “I’m thinking of changing the focus of my research. I have become inter-ested — very interested — in studying mutant youth.” 

Professor Rotenberg gave a small quirky smile as if she thought Andi was making a joke. Perhaps an inappropriately distasteful joke. The smile died when she saw Andi wasn’t kidding, but a hopeful nature required her to venture, “You are kidding, aren’t you?” 

Andi let out a small squeak and stuttered, “Um, no Ellen, I’m completely serious.” 

“Then I don’t understand,” Rotenberg answered, kneading her hands reflexively. “You have spent years of your life — right from your undergraduate years — researching children of divorce. And now, just when your work is paying off, you want to jump to an entirely new… And not just _new_ , but so… so _radical_!” 

Andi felt herself wincing under Rotenberg’s piercing eye and a wave of panic ran through her. She tried to lighten the atmosphere with a smile and a laugh, saying, “Well, I don’t know if ‘radical’ is the word I would choose. ‘Different,’ maybe. Ellen, you should meet some of these kids! It’s fascinating —” 

“My goodness, didn’t I just read about a family whose house collapsed when a mutant — their son I think it was — just _blew up_ the furnace.” She was straightening pages on her desk distractedly, seemingly witnessing the horror in her mind’s eye. 

Andi suddenly felt very cold. Why did they always have the air conditioner on so high? She glanced out the window at a starling perched on a wire. Despite its precarious position, it sang with confidence in the piercing sunshine of this blazing late-July morning. Andi longed for that heat on her own limbs. 

She responded carefully, “Ellen, please don’t think I haven’t given this a great deal of thought. That’s why I’m seeking your opinion about —” 

“It’s not just the lost time I’m concerned about. You would be plunging straight into controversial waters. I’m not saying that it isn’t important for us to learn as much as possible about…” she seemed to struggle just to speak the word. “About mutants. But there are many other aspects you could choose: public reaction, institutional planning.” 

Andi felt herself bristling as she listened to the older woman fret. 

“But Andi,” Rotenberg continued in an increasingly strained voice, “you are looking to study and, knowing you, probably to advocate on behalf of mutant youth, a population whose legal status is far from certain and who — you must admit — might be highly dangerous to you personally and to the public at large. Not to mention to this department professionally!” 

“Professor,” she ventured, trying to keep the discussion rational. “Have you ever met a mutant?” 

The older woman immediately went on the defensive. “Well, not _personally_ , but I’ve read many articles in the _Times_. _The Atlantic_ also had an excellent piece —” 

“Because,” Andi interrupted, “I’ve been working with mutant kids this summer. And if you could just see them! They’re beautiful! Some of them have iridescent skin, and some can do _wonderful_ things. It’s nothing to be scared of!” 

“Isn’t it? Uncontrolled powers, unknown intentions —” 

“They’re children, Ellen. Their bodies are doing strange, horrible and even miraculous things that none of us understand, least of all them. They’re just as scared of what’s happening to them as we are. They’ve been rejected, _hunted_ in some cases!” The older woman looked pained, and Andi found that her fear of confronting this parental figure had completely evaporated. 

Rotenberg sighed deeply. “Well, of course they’re children, but what kind of… Andi, dear, please think carefully. A good academic career is not something to gamble with so recklessly.” 

Andi felt her spine straighten “Professor, thank you for your concern, but I think I’ve finally made up my mind. Now that I’ve gotten involved, I realize I have a duty to this population. Frankly, it’s hard for me to believe that this would not be a good move for me professionally. I have the potential to be one of the first experts out of the gate in an important new area that will have ramifications politically, socially, militarily…” 

_Militarily?_ Andi had actually surprised herself with the word. Until she said it, she didn’t realize that the military would, of course, be planning anti-mutant strategies and, perhaps looking to recruit mutants for their combat potential. She felt another chill go through her and she had wait to regain her composure. 

Professor Rotenberg glared at her in silence until Andi forged ahead, braver now. “Furthermore, I’m pretty sure I want to take this work straight through into a PhD.” 

“And who would supervise?” she asked coldly. “Who is qualified in this new field and, more importantly, who is willing?” 

“Charles Xavier has offered to be my advisor, Professor. You know him of course.” 

The older woman seemed utterly startled. “Well, yes, of course. Charles would be ideal. And he does still have adjunct professor status here. However, Andi, you might want to think twice about having him as your advisor.” 

Andi stared at her. “Why? What have you heard?” 

Professor Rotenberg leaned forward with a conspiratorial air and an almost comic excitement, because there is no nugget of knowledge the academic savors as much as collegial gossip. “Rumors have been heard in the halls here, Andi. They say Charles’ interest in mutants goes beyond the professional. If you know what I mean.” 

_So,_ Andi thought, _people suspect Xavier is a mutant. Should I warn him? He must know…_

Aloud, she countered, “Why should that worry me, Ellen?” 

“Well if he is… like that, it’s hard to know what his real motivations…” she struggled to find words that didn’t make her sound less than a tolerant member of the New York liberal intelligentsia. 

Andi was tired of being shut down. She rose from the chair — probably the last time she would know its comfort — and said, “Anyway, Professor, I’ll complete the paperwork for my new course of study and have it back on your desk by Wednesday. I have every confidence that the department will support my research in this field.” 

She realized she should be more polite, more politic. _Fuck it,_ she thought. _I’ll mend bridges later._

“Andi —” 

“Ellen! I have to go. Thank you for your time.” 

She left the office without a backward glance. She began walking down the hall, faster and faster, a wave of emotion slowly growing in her breast. She ran down the stairs, through the building’s lobby and out the doors where the heat hit her like a fist. Still, she surged confidently into the daylight, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, where she closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun. Her heart was pounding and she wasn’t sure which of the many emotions cycling in her breast was dominant. Exhilaration, she decided. 

 

*** 

 

The day dragged on under the merciless sun, and the citizens of New York struggled through it until at last sunset brought them relief and they stepped out into the relative cool of evening to share the joyous respite. Among them were John and Keever who sat hunched across a decaying table in a greasy spoon, both with their long hair dangling over their faces. They were playing an intense game of hockey with a slowly-disintegrating sugar cube and two spoons. John couldn’t remember being happier in years. 

A fierce slap shot split the cube in two, one piece hurtling through John’s goal (as demarcated by the serviette holder and his fork) and the other skittering sideways off the table. 

“Score!” Keever yelled in triumph and threw his spoon in the air, catching it gracefully after two spins. 

“No way!” John objected, “The whole cube has to get through!” 

“You’re a sore loser, Johnny! I’m the champion.” In response, John picked up the winning sugar chip and whipped it at his opponent, bouncing it off his forehead. Keever’s eyes went wide, and John shuddered pleasurably at his own bravado. 

It was the first time the two of them had been out together in weeks. Sure, it was just for coffee and cherry pie at a craptastic diner, but Keever was John’s tonight. Since the fight in June, the boss had been possessive and paranoid, and John had become a virtual prisoner in their squat. 

Despite being with him all the time, Keever hadn’t had much room in his life for John. The turf war was in a state of tightly sprung détente, the tension never quite spilling over into violence nor receding completely. 

But some weird concatenation of circumstances had somehow given them two hours when they could get away and be… Actually, John didn’t know _what_ they were. He was both a romantic and a realist, which meant Keever was his very first boyfriend and his coldly calculated meal ticket. But tonight, John let himself play the romantic. He allowed himself be courted. 

He thought back to his first night in the city just two months earlier, the day he had run away. He had been sitting in a park not far from where they were now, scared and alone but kind of high on his daring. Until he had packed his few things and climbed aboard the bus in Syracuse, he hadn’t believed he could escape from the nightmare of his home life. But he had done it. He was John fucking Allerdyce! He was Pyro! 

In his memory, he and Keever had spotted each other at the same moment like in a lame chick-flick. It wasn’t long before the sexy man was chatting him up, strutting for him like a macho peacock, inviting him back to the squat. John’s romantic side sort of remembered it as a perfect night of love. However, the nagging buzz of the realist in the back of his head also reminded him of his need, his fear, and the pain he sacrificed up that night on the altar of dubious security. 

But now here they were, out on a _date!_ Keever sat back, brushing his thick hair from his face and sipping his coffee like he was in a chic Parisian café. “I’m going to be something, Johnny. You stick around and see. My life won’t just be selling crack to lowlifes. You watch! In a couple of years, I’m going to put you into a cool little loft overlooking Washington Square. I’ll get you a good laptop and you can write all day while I manage the empire.” 

John kept the usual sneer out of his smile. He knew Keever needed his dreams and tonight, John could even pretend they might happen. He was about to start weaving his own golden threads into their mutual fantasy when the cell rang. 

He cursed quietly as Keever answered the phone with the air of a busy Wall Street exec. He watched with consternation and then panic as changes passed through the boss’s face and body. 

“Hold it, calm the fuck down,” the older man said firmly. “It’s Nikkatyne’s gang, right? Okay, here’s what you have to… Shut up and listen to me! I need you to keep the situation under control until I get there.” He now stood, pulling bills out of his jeans and tossing them on the table. John just stared. “And you don’t let any of our guys pull a fucking gun, is that clear? Keep a lid on those dumb shits.” 

John sat frozen as Keever started to move for the door, hoping he’d be forgotten in the excitement, but Keever put a hand over the phone and yelled, “Johnny, with me! Now!” before heading out the door. 

John swore again and followed, running to catch up with Keever’s long strides as the boss headed down the street for the schoolyard where shit always seemed to go down. 

Keever was just passing through the gates of the yard when John caught up to him, panting. “Keever! Wait, I’m gonna head back. You don’t need me here, I’ll just be in the way.” 

The man spun around and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him through the gate. “No, you’re with me, Johnny. You are going to be standing by my side.” 

John’s eyes widened and he dug in his heels, dragging them to a halt. 

“Hold it, hold it,” he gasped. “Keever, I-I can’t be there! I don’t know how… What do you want with me anyway? I’m no fighter! I’m just… just your —” 

John kept wrenching Keever’s hands off him, but Keever kept grabbing a new piece until he finally pulled a hand back and slapped John hard across the face. John froze in shock, his hand rising to his hot cheek. He stared up at the boss and felt tears coming to his eyes. 

Keever stared back with furious certainty. “I am marching into that schoolyard and you are going to be at my side. You are going to present yourself as my lieutenant. You will look fearless. You will look pissed off. You will give everyone there that same fucking sneer I see you hand out to the gang. Are you hearing me, Johnny?” 

John stared back and felt something like hatred burn in his stomach. He wanted to tear Keever’s face off and light it on fire. But he couldn’t, so he used the anger to straighten his spine and to push the fear down. He spit his words in the boss’s face: “Fine. Let’s go!” 

Keever tossed his hair, straightened the hem of his t-shirt and began marching into the schoolyard, John at his heels. They rounded the school building and saw a game of human chess between their gang and Nikkatyne’s. There were boys on the playground, boys on the jungle gym — scared and dangerous. Two sides coiled in unblinking tension, two colors facing off, waiting to see who would make the next move, ready to take out any players who showed signs of weakness. 

Keever climbed up on a raised air vent like he was taking a stage, and John jumped up beside and just behind him, arms crossed on his chest so his shaking hands wouldn’t be as visible. He looked out as the boys turned to them and he realized with a sickening lurch of his stomach how many of them were armed. And how exposed he was. 

Most of the boys were no older than his 16 and some were younger, but he recognized on their faces the same hard look he was throwing back their way. He had learned that look at home, facing down the man who could beat him with impunity. He had learned that he could not protect his body but he could hang on to his pride and, when that was torn away, to his anger. 

John could hear Keever speaking, trying to both defuse the situation and come out ahead in the turf war. But he couldn’t hear the words through the rushing in his ears and the pounding of his heart. Sometimes, someone in the yard would light a cigarette, and the sudden explosion of the match or lighter would ignite his mutant powers like a firecracker in his head. He couldn’t hear Keever, but he could hear the flames, like angry ghosts, cursing in the void. Through the chaos of his brain, he thought he understood conditions being drawn up and Keever calling for a meet-up with Nikkatyne. 

And suddenly it was over and John felt Keever pulling him away. The square was emptying, occasional impotent threats ringing through the air. John couldn’t clear his head, could only stumble after Keever as members of their gang surrounded them, debriefing, decompressing. 

“We should have popped the fuckers!” 

“How many did you see?” 

“The motherfucking babies were pissing their pants!” 

“Did anyone see Nikkatyne? Was he here?” That was Keever speaking. 

“Nah, he never shows his face, but I bet the fucker was watching. I know he was.” 

John felt another explosion in his head that made him stagger. He snapped his gaze around to the fire-escape on the back of the school. Up around the third floor, a large man in eerie silhouette was lighting a cigar, puffing the flame higher as he watched them. The flame pulsed in John’s head and he fell against a wall for support. He felt the man’s eyes on him, staring intently before he vanished into the shadows. John suddenly pitched forward at the waist and vomited with a wet splash on the concrete. His hands were on his knees and his head was swimming as he looked down at the ruins of his cherry pie. _What a night of romance,_ he thought bitterly. 

Then Keever was behind him, a gentle hand on the back of his neck, helping him up, wiping his face with a tissue. 

“You did good, Johnny,” he said quietly to him. “My little lieutenant.” He wrapped an arm around John, steering him towards home. John leaned his weight into the man and let himself be cared for. 

 

*** 

 

“Much better, Robert,” Professor Xavier nodded, handing Bobby back his sociology paper over the expanse of his wide, cluttered desk. “Your research is much more rigorous than in the first draft.” 

Bobby leaned forward in the wingback leather chair that was probably a Xavier family heirloom like a hundred years old and, smiling, took the essay back. “Really? I worked until almost three last night.” 

“Hmm. You should ensure that you are getting adequate rest. Your life is too busy to go short on sleep.” 

_Too busy?_ Bobby thought. _My life is perfect!_ Aloud, he apologized, “I know, Professor, but you really challenged me to back up my points.” 

“And you did. First rate. Of course, in the next draft —” 

Bobby’s face fell a bit. “The _next_ draft?” 

“— I want you to carefully consider your comparison of mutant integration with that faced by immigrant populations in America. What are the distinctions? Off the top of my head, I can point out that mutants raised here have advantages of language, relative wealth —” 

“Right, cultural background, _et cetera_. Okay, okay. I’ll fix that.” Bobby hadn’t known before that he could be so simultaneously exasperated and pleased. Teacher and student kind of beamed at each other for a minute before Bobby stood up. 

“I gotta go, Professor,” he told him. “Scott’s training with me now.” 

“And I have the great pleasure of filling out yet more paperwork for the District School Commissioner.” The old man glared at the forms in front of him as Bobby moved to leave. “Robert?” he called out, stopping the young man in his tracks. “I’m glad you’re here with us.” 

Bobby blushed a bit. “Me too, Professor Xavier. Like, really.” 

Before things got too mushy, Bobby opened the oak door and raced out, forgetting to close it as usual. He ran down the corridor singing “American Idiot” at the top his lungs because he loved how the echoes sounded against the paneled walls. He knew that in a few short weeks, 12 new students would arrive and the mansion would become a busy place, but for now, he could feel like a rich boy in one of those British costume movies, living his life in a hundred rooms, puffing out his chest with the certainty of his baronial privilege. 

_“Now everybody do the propaganda / And sing along in the age of paranoia!!”_

He ran past the big hidden door — the _secret_ elevator to the lower levels that Scott and the other adults were so cagey about. He knew Cerebro was down there, but what other mind-blowing, high-tech wonders shared the space? Super computers? Mutant testing labs? As his curiosity had grown, so had the wildness of his theories. 

His rubber-necking almost landed him in a pile of construction garbage in the lobby. He jumped over it with a battle cry, ducked under a ladder in the adjacent corridor before doing a final sprint through the locker room door. 

Panting, Bobby looked around for Scott and saw him sitting on a bench by the lockers in just track pants, tying the laces of his training shoes. Bobby felt his brains kind of freeze up the way they did when Scott was around in some state of undress. Conscious thought took a coffee break as he allowed his eyes to quickly wander over the lean, fit torso with its sparse hair and well-defined muscles. Scott’s six-pack especially made Bobby’s intelligence depart for some other galaxy while the more primitive parts of his brain had a field day. 

“Come on,” Scott said in his brusque field-commander voice. “You’re five minutes late. I’ll meet you outside.” Scott stood and pulled on a gray t-shirt which made the School’s stylish ‘X’ logo stretch over his firm right pec. He closed his eyes while he switched from glasses to visor then firmly shut his locker. He left the locker room and Bobby could hear him open the heavy fire door that led to the back gardens of the mansion, the sports field and the acres of meadow and woods beyond. 

Bobby hurried to his locker and began to change into X-marked sweatpants and a sleeveless t-shirt with a big central ‘X.’ Idly, and connected to _nothing at all_ , he wondered if he’d have time to jerk off between training and dinner. 

During a memorable and slightly drunken night at Mike’s house, his friend had asked Bobby what he thought about when he jerked off. Stammering like a jack hammer, Bobby had told him, “Nothing! I don’t think of stuff… I just sort of do it.” 

Bobby was vaguely aware that there were whole sections of thought that seemed to be off-limits and that was… just fine and didn’t merit more consideration. 

He met Scott outside and joined him in his stretching regime before they began a two kilometer jog around the track at a medium-fast pace. When they had started training almost a month earlier, Bobby had been shocked to find out just how out of shape he was compared to his 24-year-old instructor, and after a couple of days, he had been a ball of aching exhaustion. Yet Scott never disparaged him, instead giving him tips on managing his breathing and on maintaining optimal balance in his workouts. 

After a couple of weeks, Bobby was amazed at how strong and fast he was becoming. Similarly with his schoolwork, he came to remember the joys of learning. Xavier challenged and encouraged him in sociology, literature and physics. Ororo gave him new perspectives through her teaching of history and reminded him how much he had always liked biology. Scott, in addition to making him feel like an outright hero through his training, was also an excellent math instructor, even if he was a bit, well, boring when explaining quadratic equations. 

If there was a common thread in all their teaching, it was focus. Bobby was learning to quiet the voices of despair that had taken over his soul in the past year and apply himself fully to whatever he was doing. 

Bobby and Scott finished their 2k, but instead of stopping, Scott turned from the track and ran them deeper into the wild part of the grounds. Breathing evenly and enjoying the warmth in his limbs, Bobby smiled because they were going to the best place of all. They climbed a small hill and stood at the crest overlooking a stretch of scorched and broken turf. This blasted field was surrounded on all sides by rising banks of earth, which formed a safe bowl where a mutant in training could unleash even deadly powers. Inside the pit were various painted circles and targets, most half-destroyed, and a series of colored game flags. 

Scott tried to look serious as he surveyed the pit, but there was a mischievous smile playing at the edges of his mouth. 

“Bobby!” he shouted. “Two fastballs!” 

Bobby dutifully spread his arms wide, took a centering breath and each hand quickly filled with a rough ice sphere. He wound up and sent one and then the other out over the pit. Scott’s hand flew to his visor control and released short blinding optic blasts, completely eradicating each ice ball in turn before it could hit the ground. 

“I’m escaping,” Scott shouted, before the hiss of steam was dead on the air. “Don’t let me get reach the red flag!” He began racing in a zigzag down the slope into the pit. 

Bobby chased after him, sending shots of ice and sleet through the air at his target’s back. But Scott was weaving too fast and would soon reach the flag. Bobby swept his arm in a wide arc and a ragged sheet of ice suddenly formed in front of Scott. Scott tried to evade it, but his momentum was too great; he found himself slipping and rolling downhill. 

Bobby jumped up and threw his hands into the air in victory; but his celebration was premature as Scott rolled neatly out of his tumble into a stable squat and blasted the ground loose below Bobby’s feet. Now it was Bobby who found himself rolling down the muddy slope as Scott got back on his feet and raced for the flag. 

Cursing, Bobby pulled his face from the dirt and looked around desperately for a strategy. Then, just as Scott moved in on his target, a sudden whirlwind wound out of the ground like a cobra, knocking his teacher sideways before it encircled the flagpole and lifted it right out of the earth, showering Scott with mud. 

Bobby rolled over and saw Ororo at the top of the hill, one arm extended as the whirlwind brought the flag right to her, her white hair flying in its wake. Bobby grinned like an idiot, and Ororo responded with a small, satisfied smile. In her no-nonsense way, she commented, “Today’s lesson, Bobby, is teamwork.” 

“Teamwork, huh?” muttered Scott, rising to his feet and brushing the mud from his hair. He raised his hand slowly, menacingly to his visor and yelled, “Bobby! Ice wall!” before he began shooting at the ground, sending clods of earth flying at him. Bobby squeezed his eyes into slits at the assault and began building a narrow wall of ice from the ground up to shelter himself. It took him almost five seconds to make a shelter he could barely crouch behind — a much faster time than last week, he noted — but by then he was coated in mud. 

Suddenly, the barrage stopped. 

Bobby peered nervously over the edge of his dirt-spattered wall and saw Scott smiling dangerously at Ororo. “You might want to join Bobby in his shelter, ‘Ms. Teamwork’,” he said before he shot a series of pulse blasts into the earth in front of her, sending a shower of mud at the fastidious weather witch who howled in response. 

Soon the three of them were together in the pit, fighting with ice, optic blasts, wind and whatever dirty tactics they could improvise. Bobby kept falling into the role of sidekick, sometimes aiding Ororo against Scott and sometimes becoming Scott’s lieutenant in the battle of the guys against the girl. 

Fifteen minutes later, they were lying together on a small patch of grass that had survived unscathed on one side of the pit, filthy, breathing hard and staring up at the beautiful high clouds that twisted into spectacular, mutant forms overhead. 

“Bobby,” Scott began, “you keep leaving your left flank open. Every time I knocked you down I came in from that side.” 

“I know!” he answered, frustrated. “And every time you did I thought, ‘Left flank! Left flank!’” 

“Well, that’s good. Becoming conscious of a bad habit is the first step in overcoming it.” 

Bobby loved how Scott taught him. He neither condescended nor hectored. He rarely handed out overt compliments but he always let him know that he was improving. More than anything, Bobby wanted to make him proud. 

The three sat up and looked at each other with a sense of joyous shared experience. 

Excitedly, Bobby said, “We should rent ourselves out as security or something. You know, for someone big like a hip-hop star or the President. We could be, like, an ultimate fighting team!” 

Ororo raised an eyebrow in Scott’s direction and said dryly, “There’s an interesting idea, Scott. Perhaps we should suggest it to Charles.” Scott frowned at her, but she didn’t seem to notice. She stood, brushed the mud from the front of her sweatshirt, turned and began walking back towards the house, giving them a small wave over her shoulder before she disappeared over the crest of the hill. 

Bobby had the distinct feeling he was missing an in-joke. 

After a minute, Scott spoke. “There is much we can do as mutants to help the world. But for now, we have to educate the public so they accept our help instead of resenting it. We are training for the day when they understand.” 

“Seems like a lot of work for ‘someday’.” 

“We also train to defend ourselves against a day humanity decides we are a danger that must be…” He paused until Bobby raised his eyebrows in concern. “Dealt with.” 

The wind picked up again, making the dance of the clouds more anxious and forbidding. 

“Even so,” Bobby offered, “we could have some really awesome uniforms. It would be totally cool.” 

While they jogged back to the house, Scott treated Bobby to a discourse on seven ways to find a hole in an opponent’s defenses. He explained how the principles were the same for hand-to-hand combat as for an army storming a castle. Bobby listened respectfully, noticing that Scott was at his most verbose and engaged when discussing battle tactics. Bobby figured he must have been one of those kids obsessed with strategy games, an area that had never really interested Bobby. He was more into games of speed and skill like SSX. 

As the mansion came into view, Scott picked up the pace and then notched it up again. Bobby kept up with him, stride for stride. Looking down, he saw their thighs rising and falling in unison and the sight thrilled him. Scott Summers and Bobby Drake, the fighting mutants, friends on and off the battlefield! 

They turned into the formal gardens behind the mansion and Scott started sprinting, turning them into competitors. Bobby pushed hard, but Scott gritted his teeth and pulled ahead. It was sheer determination, Bobby realized. Scott wanted to win. Every time. At any cost. 

Arriving at the door to the gym a few seconds after Scott, Bobby collapsed on the ground, panting, rivers of sweat carrying the mud down his neck. 

“Get up,” Scott told him. “Do a cool down or you’ll get cramps.” He put a warm hand on Bobby’s bare shoulder and helped him stand, saying, “Good workout, buddy.” 

When they’d finished their cool-down routine, Bobby watched Scott peel off his muddy t-shirt, the dirt on his neck and arms forming a negative shirt on the clean white skin of his torso. Scott opened the heavy fire door, the muscles of his back working, and disappeared inside. 

Bobby moved in a kind of nonchalant slow motion, entering the building and following his teacher to the boys’ locker room. Once inside, Bobby stood at the mirror checking out his dirty hair, finding moments to catch glimpses of Scott as he got naked. Bobby had a deal with himself: as long as he didn’t stare too much, as long as he only saw stuff in his peripheral vision, it didn’t mean anything. 

Yet as the weeks had passed, he had been building a mental map of Scott’s slim, powerful body piece by piece. Here, the crease of an arm as a bicep formed. There, the lean grace of the calf. Here, the jut of the pubic bone below the beautiful abs and there, the swing of the sturdy, compact equipment in its neat nest of dark hair. And at that especially he never stared. 

“Look at that,” Scott teased. “The guy hasn’t even showered and he’s already admiring himself in the mirror.” Bobby blushed and turned away, circling around to his locker. “Is this what a houseful of adolescents is going to be like, Drake? God help me!” He trotted off to the showers, Bobby ‘accidentally’ witnessing the bump and bounce of the firm ass cheeks. 

It was a long time before Bobby emerged from the showers to dress in the empty locker room. He stood again in front of the same mirror, putting gel in his hair, practicing smiles. He wondered who would be around at dinner. Sometimes it was everybody: the Professor, Ororo, Scott. Sometimes even more when visiting officials or friends stopped by. 

Just last week, the Professor had announced that an old friend from the State Department would be joining them for the weekend. Bobby had later been shocked to find the distinguished visitor hanging from the ceiling by one enormous bare foot while chatting with Xavier. Other than his outsized hands and feet, Hank McCoy looked aggressively normal, even nondescript. However, despite his rather formal way of talking, he had been friendly, and he had taken Bobby’s views about mutant issues with an air of seriousness that made Bobby feel important. He wished Mike could meet Hank. 

But sometimes, rarely, it was just him and Scott and he hoped it might be that way tonight. 

When he felt he looked good enough, he left the locker room and headed for the lobby. As he got there, he heard loud laughter coming from the recreation room, a large area they were in the midst of furnishing with foosball and billiards as well as a ring of seats around a huge TV. Xavier was there, Ororo was lounging across the full length of the couch in bare feet; and on the love-seat sat Scott, almost hidden by the woman in his lap. 

Bobby stood frozen at the door eyeing the stranger. She was tall — maybe six feet — wearing a tight mauve shirt that showed off her large breasts and a mid-length navy skirt. Bobby wasn’t a good judge of age, but she had to be 30. She laughed loudly and seemed to dominate the room with the force of her personality. Scott too was laughing at everything she said and he ran a hand along her neck and through her hair, his other hand squeezing her waist. 

Perhaps sensing his presence, the Professor turned and called out, “Robert! Come meet Jean.” 

Scott peeked out from behind the woman, who grinned a welcoming grin. 

“Hi,” she called out warmly, “I’m Jean Grey. Welcome to Westchester, Bobby. Have a seat!” One of the empty armchairs beside the love seat suddenly rotated his way, startling him. He then remembered: Jean Grey, one of the Professor’s original pupils. Medical doctor. Telekinetic. He stood frozen, wishing he could just back out of the room again. He felt confused, jumpy. 

“Hey Bobby,” Scott chided, “Don’t be anti-social. I know my girlfriend looks scary, but really, she only bites if you ask her to!” Jean looked comically outraged and swatted Scott on top of his head. He retaliated by tickling her into oblivious howls. 

Bobby felt kind of sick to his stomach as he came forward and curled himself into the armchair putting a fake smile on his lips and reaching out to shake Jean’s extended hand. There were thirty minutes until dinner, during which he was painfully monosyllabic despite his best efforts to be polite. 

When the dinner bell rang, they headed for the dining room, Bobby lagging behind, dragging his feet with squeaking sneakers. He watched how Scott strutted around Jean and couldn’t keep his hands off her, like the football players at school who were always showing off that they had the hottest chicks. She was more self-possessed, but seemingly happy to be the object of his adoration. 

Bobby caught up with Scott and tugged at his sleeve. “Hey, do you want to try and map the circuit breakers for the dorms tonight?” 

“Not tonight buddy,” he replied, reaching over to tussle Bobby’s curls. “I’m going to be busy, if you know what I mean!” 

“Scott!” Jean admonished, “For a guy who dresses like Bing Crosby, you can be incredibly crude.” But she was grinning as she said it. 

Dinner was set out in steam trays on the side tables of the dining hall. They filled their plates and moved to sit down at the heavy maple tables that Bobby and Scott had picked up from another old school in the area that was closing down. They all sat together except Bobby who ostentatiously picked up the _New York Times_ and moved a few tables away. No one called him on it. They seemed too enthralled to hear about Jean’s latest work on the X-gene. 

Bobby tried to shut them out and concentrate on his paper but he couldn’t stop the ungenerous questions that filled him. _What does Scott see in this Amazon? Why does he let her talk to him that way? Doesn’t he know how dumb he looks mooning at her? Doesn’t he see she’s too damn old for him?_

When Margit laid out dessert, they all got up to serve themselves and Bobby took the opportunity to slip out unobserved. He knew it was rude not to say goodnight, but he felt like he couldn’t summon up one more smile. He walked up the stairs in silence. 

His small room would eventually be a dorm for two, but now Bobby was happy to be alone. Sort of. He paced back and forth, waves of tension running through his body. And with the waves came ice that he kept inadvertently leaving in his wake. He cursed his loss of control at the same time as he wished he could just let loose and bury the whole fucking school in a new ice age. 

Where did this stranger get off ‘welcoming’ him in his own home? 

Girlfriend. 

_And so what?_ he harangued himself. _Isn’t he allowed to have a girlfriend? What did you think? He was yours?_

Bobby’s mind began replaying all the times he and Scott had spent together — working, laughing, talking — in the last month. He remembered endless boring hours filing all the papers that were piling up in the office and how they would keep each other entertained making up dumb action movie dialogue. He remembered drives through the countryside and excursions to the City, and promises Scott had made to teach him to drive. He remembered the strength of Scott’s hands massaging a cramp out of his thigh after a hard run. 

Bobby sat down at his desk and banged on the keyboard until his computer woke up. Emails from Mike. Fuck it. Emails from his mother. Double fuck it. He should do draft number goddamn THREE of his stupid paper that never satisfied Xavier. He should log on to 2gether and let Gina know he was alive. 

But he was fucking sick of SHOULDS! What was the point of all this studying, all this training. He was nothing but a stupid mutant kid, nothing but a… 

He tapped his desk aggressively with his pen until the rhythm coaxed more Green Day out of him: “Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation.” 

The tapping grew into aggressive banging on the old wooden desk with the flat of his hand, and he shouted the lyrics hoarsely, tunelessly: “Well maybe I’m the faggot Ameri…!” 

He froze. He saw his face reflected in the computer screen, in the desktop picture of Ross Rebagliati on his board, cutting through fresh powder in Torino. He stared at his reflection, and it seemed like the snow and ice were in him, like Bobby Drake had been lost in the arctic wastes till he forgot what it meant to be human. Till there was no one there but Iceman. 

He knew it had been unlikely. He knew that. But hadn’t it been at least _possible?_

If it wasn’t for Jean Grey, Scott might have chosen _him._

He started to cry. 

 

*** 

 

The middle of August came around, and John found himself living as a prisoner in a castle under siege. Despite tentative agreements between the two gangs, tension had remained high and, after the mysterious death of one of Nikkatyne’s boys, Keever had been expecting retaliation daily. 

They had moved to a higher floor for security, but that meant the living conditions were even more primitive; they had to climb five flights to haul water up and slop buckets down. The broken fence leading from the alleyway to the airshaft yard had been torn down and replaced with a guard post. No one got in or out without being seen. 

John found himself once again abandoned by Keever, and he spent his claustrophobic days writing poetry. That, at least, seemed to be going well. He was finding new confidence in his poetic voice, and a new sense of playfulness that surprised him as much as it thrilled him.   


_From the old red trailer_   
_By the abandoned mine_   
_He watches the hills_   
_For possible unlikelies_   
_With their cunning scalpels_

_In the oily night they’ll_   
_Open him up_   
_And their dirty hands will_   
_Rummage for interpretations_   
_And plastic fetus parts_

John cackled to himself as he wrote the last line. He had tried to interest Keever in his poems but the man had seemed perplexed and sheepish. John realized the boss was scared he would look stupid if he didn’t understand them. John felt profoundly let down by this show of insecurity from his knight. He found himself hating Keever — just a bit, just for a minute. 

But that didn’t matter now. Now there were pretty words tucked into the leather folder which lay at his side as he stretched in the sunlight that filtered hazily through the dirty window, and he felt just fine. He imagined the sun heating the folder until all the words inside were jiggling like cockroaches, starting to fuck each other in a wild literary orgy. They would beget whole new forms of expression, new words and new syntax — language that would invade the streets, slithering and writhing, turning everyone it touched into _mutants!_ A new literary revolution of unprecedented fecundity. 

He drifted into contented sleep. 

He dreamed he was in a field, and in the field was a tree and it was a swing set. His hands were over his head, tied to the bar and he was rocking lazily like a swing himself, bare feet inches above the ground. He was naked and he thought that was funny — being naked in his parents’ backyard in broad daylight. There was a beautiful woman in a blue dress like a glacier, and she shared the joke, both of them laughing. She was holding something in her hand — long, furry. It was a wildcat and it snarled ferociously. He suddenly wanted to leave, but his wrists were held tight by the ropes, and his arms were aching badly. She swung the cat by its tail, back and forth, warming up, readying herself to strike. And John said, kind of desperately, “Not my face, Bobby.” And Bobby said, “I don’t want to hurt you,” and he raised the whip high. 

John was being shaken awake by Chisel. Night had fallen and John felt a cold dampness fill the room. The beams of flashlights were crossing dizzily in the air, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs was anxious and fraught. 

“Come on, Joanna,” Chisel was saying but there was another note underneath his usual abuse: fear. “Get your ass downstairs.” 

John’s head was still muzzy from dreaming. “What’s happening? Who —” 

“It’s fucking Nikkatyne. He’s here, in person, with half his gang looks like. We’re either gonna strike a deal tonight or go to war.” 

“Fuck.” John tucked his portfolio under the mattress and pulled a torn sweater over his t-shirt before following Chisel down the dark stairs. Windows in the stairwell looked out onto the airshaft which was filling with guys. Floor by floor as he descended, he peered out and his trepidation grew. He could see cigarettes lighting up, and with each ignition, his head made a little ‘pop.’ Since the standoff on the schoolyard, he’d become more sensitive to fire and he didn’t know what to make of this development. At least the little explosions were helping to wake him up. 

Just as he approached the second floor landing, he felt a wave of sensation slam through him and he staggered, ending up on his knees. He breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. He pulled himself up to the window and saw that someone had lit a big fire in the garbage can in the yard. Eerie light turned the faces around the square to tribal masks, and giant shadows appeared on the brick walls behind them. 

Since he had been 12-years-old, he had been able to sense the presence of fire, but this was a whole new level. He could feel the white hot core of the blaze; he could feel its hunger as it greedily consumed the scrap wood; he could feel each orange-yellow tendril as it licked the rusted rim of the barrel and then stretched skyward. Now that he was over being blindsided by the sensations, he realized it didn’t feel half bad. He raced down the last flight of stairs. 

A knot of guys was huddled in the doorway that lead out to the airshaft, half hiding, ready to retreat. John pushed himself through them and out into the open. His heart was beating faster as he took in the scene. Guys were arrayed closer to or further from the blazing garbage can according to toughness. About ten feet out, everyone was armed and showing them off. In the center stood Keever and a huge black man in a long coat, puffing a fat cigar: Nikkatyne. 

John suddenly felt way too exposed and scuttled along the wall in a half crouch, heading for a dark corner where he could observe anonymously. He wondered how he’d react if Keever was attacked. 

As he looked at the big intruder, he no longer had any doubt — this was the man he had spotted on the fire escape that night in the schoolyard. Nikkatyne was older than John expected; probably in his 40s, with a deeply-lined round face, head shaved, lips full, nose fat and prominent. His eyes were large and keen. They betrayed no fear and stayed steadily on Keever’s face. John shuddered, imagining what it would be like to be caught in that gaze. It kind of turned him on. And kind of not. 

Then it happened. Just before John reached his safe shadows, Nikkatyne’s penetrating eyes turned on him. Instead of running the final distance into the shadows, John froze and stared back. Without taking his eyes off John, Nikkatyne said something to Keever who — _holy shit_ — turned and stared at him, too. _What the fuck?!_

They turned back to each other. Nikkatyne was smiling. Keever, his back to John shifted uneasily and bowed his head. John overcame his inertia and sprinted into the shadows, crouching behind an old refrigerator that was lying on its side. Something was really wrong. Another young member of their gang — a recent recruit who looked no older than 14 — was also hiding behind the fridge. 

John hissed at him, “What’s going on? What have you heard?” 

“I dunno,” the boy whispered back, “They were arguing about where to draw a line between the territories. Nikkatyne — he wasn’t giving an inch and Keever just kept babbling like a…” but he realized he shouldn’t complete the sentence and instead just concluded, “It was bad.” 

“Shit,” John muttered, digging a fingernail into the flesh of his arm until the pain was sharper than his fear. “Now what? They got all quiet!” 

“I dunno,” the boy repeated and sunk down lower. 

Keever’s voice suddenly rang out loudly through the air, “John!” 

John’s heart stopped. _No,_ he thought in panic, _he didn’t just fucking call me, did he?_ He didn’t move — not a muscle, not a hair. The crouching kid stared up at him, eyes bugging out. 

The voice came again, with an edge of frenzy and fury to it: “John! Out here, now!” 

John rose slowly from behind the refrigerator, noticed by a few and then by more until everyone in the silent yard was staring at him. Shaking, he walked forward, from the relative shelter of the fringes to the flaming center of the event. 

He tried to put on his game face, but this was just all too _wrong_. He knew he looked exactly as he felt: a scared kid. Nikkatyne had a smile on his face — a hungry fucking smile. Keever’s face was red, staring holes in the ground, not looking back at John who was desperately willing his boss, his protector, his lover to _please_ turn and face him — to let him know with a nod and a wink that it was going to be okay. 

But, if anything, the closer John got, the more Keever was shutting him out. John knew that the kid behind the fridge was right. This was bad. Keever was beat. When he was ten feet from the men, John stopped. There seemed to be no sound in the universe but the crackle of fire. 

His ginger hair covering his eyes, Keever said in a low, raspy rumble, “Johnny, listen. I need you to do something for me. For the whole organization.” 

“Keev…” John began hesitantly. 

“You gotta go with him,” Keever spat out quickly. 

John felt his legs start to shake. “What? What are you talking about?” 

From inside the garbage can, the flames seemed to be shouting, arguing. Keever was speaking hoarsely, but John couldn’t hear him above the shouts of the flames. He shook his head to silence the voices, looking desperately up at Keever who had all but turned his back now. 

“— just for one night. It’s okay; he said he wouldn’t hurt you.” 

John’s stomach was a tight ball, he felt Nikkatyne’s eyes on him, and when he looked his way, the man smiled broadly showing sickly teeth, brown as mahogany. 

“He says you got a sweet mouth, little John,” Nikkatyne said in a voice of toffee and acid. John started backing away slowly. 

The flames almost seemed to be saying words, difficult poetry that his brain couldn’t parse: “Insinuate! Carnivore! Excoriate!” _Shut up! Shut up!_ he thought. 

Around him, men were fingering their guns nervously, and Nikkatyne was staring with unwavering calm. John suddenly ran around the garbage can and grabbed Keever with desperate clutching hands. 

“Keever! Please, no, don’t do this!” and Keever was pushing him off like he was a dog. John fell to the ground, crying now, grabbing at his lover’s clothes, trying to climb back up him, desperate to find his protector inside this wall of stone. He had no dignity, no bravado — he had only his fear and his need. 

Then a huge hand fell heavily on his shoulder, squeezing painfully, bringing him to his feet. John stood inert, tears streaming down his face. The stink of old tobacco filled his nostrils, and he felt the heat of the fetid breath as Nikkatyne hissed into his ear, “You stop your bawling now, little boy, and come along quietly.” 

_“Retribution! Holocaust!”_ chanted the white hot core of the flames. _“Incendiary!!”_

“Let go of me,” John said in a new voice that had never been heard before. Nikkatyne straightened a bit in surprise and even Keever looked around. 

Keever sounded worried: “Johnny…?” 

“I SAID LET GO OF ME!” 

The flames shot 20 feet in the air, leaving the wide mouth of the garbage can like a geyser. And somehow, impossibly they seemed to stop at their zenith and hang there, like a hawk sighting its prey, before they dropped like the wrath of God onto Nikkatyne’s back. 

The man cried out, “Help me!” 

His followers were frozen at the unnatural sight. John broke free and ran halfway across the square. He turned back just as Nikkatyne fell to the ground, the flames devouring his long coat, licking greedily at his bald head. John seemed to see everything as if in a dream. He felt no fear and watched, fascinated, as the man struggled against the beautiful, beautiful fire. It was like seeing the Northern Lights on a summer night. He looked down at his own arms, which were also coated in flame. But instead of burning him, the flames seemed to dance around his limbs like a school of fish. A strange, child-like smile opened up on John’s face as he took control of the dancing fire and pulled it into himself. His sweater was only slightly singed. 

Small bonfires of flaming debris were now scattered around the square and they seemed to sing to him, soothing and lovely. He turned his attention back to the burning man who was screaming now. The gang members were at a loss. Some were looking around desperately, impotently for help; others were arguing. To John, even those terrible flames, consuming fabric and flesh were beautiful. He walked calmly back to Nikkatyne, the heat from the fire having no effect on him. He raised an arm high in the air, and the flames left the man’s body and flew in an arc back to John’s arm where they flashed like a sun and vanished. 

The only sounds in the square were Nikkatyne’s pained groans and the crackle of the fires. John slowly turned 360 degrees, meeting the eyes of all. His circle ended at Keever whose mouth was hanging open. 

John’s voice sounded very far away as he said very calmly, “I thought you loved me.” And with that, his legs buckled and he fell to the ground, the world vanishing in blackness. 

He awoke with no sense of where he was or how long he had been out. Still, it must have only been a minute because now people were running, shouting, lifting Nikkatyne and hauling him awkwardly away. _God,_ thought John, _he looks like shit! What the fuck happened?_

He felt a wave of nausea and he put his head down between his knees, trying hard not to throw up. Everyone who passed him gave him scared looks and kept their distance. He was confused, couldn’t put it all together. But then somewhere in the fringes of the square, he caught the words “mutie freak”. He got to his feet and suddenly remembered everything that had just happened. Everything _he_ had just done! 

“No!” the word flew out of his mouth and terror gripped him. He looked at the retreating figures of Nikkatyne’s gang, spotting the charred figure of the huge man they were carrying. The faces around him were scared and angry. Members of his own gang were pulling out knives and guns to defend themselves. From him. 

He felt inside himself for that pure, elemental fire power he had unleashed just minutes before, but it was gone. Something had indeed shifted; he could feel it. The fires around the yard were calling to him in ways they never had before, but he knew he wasn’t the demi-god that had called down burning wrath from heaven. He felt his fatigue — his limits. He had to get away. Now! 

Beside him, an old wooden packing crate was blazing. He took a deep breath and did something he had never done before. He stuck his hand into the heart of the flame. It didn’t burn him. He grabbed a flaming stick and raised it in the air like the sword of judgment — though, in fact, it was a bit on the pathetic side as heavenly weapons go. The flames danced around the stick and around his hand. He began to move towards the guard station and the alleyway beyond, the others backing away. He didn’t feel cocky. He knew one bullet from a scared kid would end him fast. 

He resisted the temptation to break into a run, and just kept his steady pace until he had turned the corner. The torch went out abruptly and he grabbed the wall for support. He had to run, get away from them. But where the fuck would he go? Where could he…? 

His portfolio. 

He suddenly remembered the leather folder with all his poems and stories, hidden five flights up. _Leave it!_ his brain screamed. But he never listened, did he? He ran for one of the ground floor windows boarded up with old plywood. He began tearing at a loose corner, cursing as a rusty nail cut his hand. Then the wood was off. He grabbed the hunk of charred wood again and climbed into the dark corridor. He pulled out his lighter and relit the torch. Despite his fatigue, it was easy to make the flame take the wood in its hungry jaws. 

With the torch as his protection and beacon, he reached the back staircase and climbed. He only bumped into a few of the gang, but each time he would make the flames flash threateningly and they would turn and run. He finally reached the bedroom. The flames played eerily across the familiar space. 

In the flickering, orange light, he saw all the little useless treasures he had hoarded, and all the little domestic touches he had made to the dismal space. It was all part of a fantasy that had just, literally gone up in flames. He ran to the mattress and dug under it to find his portfolio. 

He was shaking again, and he realized that what he feared was meeting Keever. Portfolio in hand, he turned to leave… and there the man stood in the doorway. 

John clutched the portfolio to his chest with one hand and held the torch with the other, the flame sputtering down to a small glowing ball at the tip. 

Neither moved, and John didn’t know how to read Keever’s face. The silence probably felt longer than it was, but then Keever spoke. “You’re a mutant.” 

John thought that of all the things Keever needed to say the moment, he had chosen the most banal and annoying. _You figure that out by yourself?_ he wanted to snap back. But that wasn’t what he really wanted. He wanted to hear the truth of the betrayal. He wanted to hear something that would allow him to hate the man he loved. 

“Why would you do that, Keever? Why would you give me to him?” 

The older man blushed. “Johnny, I had no choice. That was one of his conditions.” 

“Me?” John’s voice was weak, much to his own annoyance. He wanted to become furious. He wanted to ignite the room and kill them both. “I was a ‘condition’?” 

Keever barked out angrily, “It’s business, Johnny! It has nothing to do with… with us. Besides, it was _you_ who lied to _me_! All these months, living here, pretending to be _normal_!” 

John cursed the tear that broke loose and descended over his cheek. He realized he wasn’t at all afraid of his former boss anymore. He realized everything about them was “former” now and that made more tears come. 

He wanted to fall into the bed — their bed — pull his clothes off and give himself to the stupid asshole by the door who just glared and stammered and swallowed. But he put on as angry a face as he could find and, concentrating on the torch in his hand, made the flame grow until it again encompassed the hunk of charred wood and his right hand. The power he had unleashed against Nikkatyne was gone now, but Keever didn’t know that. John returned the man’s glare. 

The room danced in orange light and Keever suddenly looked frightened. He ran a hand through his hair and checked his route to the door. 

“Johnny,” he ventured nervously, “Don’t do anything stupid. I wouldn’t have let him take you! I was just setting him up!” He smiled too wide, like a dog trying to appease its master. “Listen, we can be a team now! Remember when you stood up beside me in the school yard? Just think if we did that again. The little fuckers would shit their pants! Keever and his fire mutant!” 

The rage welled up in John, and the fire puffed out its chest like a swaggering dragon. “Keever, _I’m_ the fire mutant,” John hissed quietly. “So why would I need you _at all?!_ ” 

“Johnny —” 

“It’s not ‘Johnny’, it’s PYRO!” 

The fire puffed right to the ceiling this time, and Keever cowered, holding his forearm over his face. But John could feel the drain on his resources; he wouldn’t be able to keep his powers flowing much longer. It was time to leave. With eyes as grim as death, he moved slowly towards the door, and Keever jumped out of the way. 

John dared give him one final horrible look and called out, “Don’t follow me, or I will roast you like the pig you are.” 

And then he was out the door. Almost immediately, the flame died out and he felt his legs growing shaky again. He punched himself hard in the bicep to snap himself out of the stupor. Portfolio clutched to his chest, he ran down the stairs as fast he could, counting on speed and surprise to get him out of the building. 

He didn’t stop running until he was many blocks away on a main street. It was late, close to midnight probably. He looked all around as if he were in an adventure game — as if options would present themselves if he just kept his eyes open. 

But everywhere he looked it was just the cold hard city of strangers. There was no one he knew, nowhere he could go that didn’t cost money. He had to get out of this part of town, that much was sure. He had just publicly burned up a major crime boss and outed himself as a mutant. He was fucked. 

Once again he thought of the Bobby kid. But he might as well be on the Moon for all the help he could be. John was a criminal and maybe a killer now and Bobby… Bobby was all kinds of pure. Bobby wouldn’t — couldn’t help a guy like John anymore. He was alone now. 

He feared the city; it was a silent behemoth that showed its teeth when roused. But he would survive, and on his own. He willed his tired legs onward across the pavement and disappeared into the night. 

**END OF BOOK 1**


	7. In Hiding

**BOOK 2: From What I've Tasted of Desire**

In the days following Jean’s arrival, Bobby sank back into the kind of flattened anxiety that had characterized his life in the months before his powers mani-fested. He mourned the sunny exhilaration of his first weeks in Westchester, which now felt like an anomaly in what would ultimately be a life of joyless solitude. 

July turned to August and Bobby pushed his way through the days, working, studying, training with Scott, going into the City Tuesday nights to co-convene mutant youth meetings with Andi Murakami; but the promise of a new life that had made him spring from bed in the first weeks at the mansion was gone. 

Being around Scott was especially painful and humiliating. But, ironically, it was Scott’s role modeling that got Bobby through the bad days. When it was all Bobby could do to get out of bed for his misery, he could hear Scott’s voice in his head saying, “You signed on for this life, and now it’s duty. Sometimes it’s tough, sometimes it’s the last thing you want to do. But you just do it.” 

There were certainly lots of duties, that much was certain. There were interminable mornings spent putting together an endless series of IKEA desks, beds and dressers in the dorms. These mornings gave Bobby lots of time to muse on where his life was going and all the things he was learning from his teachers. As the days passed, the routine itself became a comfort. It wasn’t long before he couldn’t really say what he had been so depressed about. He didn’t think of Scott _that way_ anymore and was embarrassed that he ever had. 

Only at night, as Bobby lay down to sleep would images of his naked teacher return to him. Like a brushfire that had never really died, the flames would rise up again to burn him with their erotic heat and he would writhe on the fire, loving Scott all over again and hating the interloper Jean Grey. Morning would again bring forgetfulness. 

Perhaps the hardest part of his routine was taking biology lessons from Jean. Despite the patience and kindness she showed him, he seemed unable to treat her with any warmth, and he could see that his attitude frustrated her. Bobby was embarrassed at his own behavior, but he also knew that it was only powerful self-restraint that prevented him from yelling at her (against all reason): _I hate you, bitch!_ These feelings he would push down like snakes into a rough canvas sack. And then they would review the structure of DNA. 

Bobby’s sixteenth birthday was fast approaching, and he found himself dreading this milestone. He prayed that somehow his family would forget the day (which, frankly, didn’t seem like such a stretch) and that his teachers at the mansion would miss the date amid the mountain of administrative trivia. 

The Iceman felt a cold satisfaction when no one mentioned it the day before. He determined to make his birthday a solitary Saturday, hiding in his room and walking the grounds. _I don’t need anybody’s attention. I don’t need Scott to care_. However, when he awoke on the actual day, a bitter taste of misery filled his mouth as he imagined interacting with the mansion’s residents and never mentioning what he was sacrificing before their uncomprehending eyes. 

His musings were interrupted by a knock on the door, something unheard of on a weekend morning. He sat up in bed, still heavy with sleep and called out, “Uh, come in?” 

The door opened and there was Scott wearing a tuxedo jacket and a red ascot over his usual Saturday morning t-shirt and sweats. He was carrying a dime-store plastic trumpet kazoo which he brought to his lips and blew inexpertly. Bobby’s mouth opened, but he could find no words for this surreal image. 

“Master Robert Drake,” Scott declaimed. “Your presence is required in the dining room. I have been instructed to escort you to said rendezvous.” 

“Huh?” Bobby finally managed. 

The courtier shot him an exasperated look. “Get out of bed, pull on some clothes and follow me, dummy.” 

Five minutes later, Bobby was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, his hair still rumpled because Scott, in his impatience, wouldn’t let him brush it. They entered the dining room where Ororo, Jean, Margit and the Professor were waiting. In ragged unison, they cried “Happy Birthday, Bobby!” He realized he shouldn’t feel so surprised, and yet he was — as if the whole universe might have shared his sense of alienation. 

“We wanted to have the cake right away,” The Professor explained, “But Margit wouldn’t let us start the day in such an unhealthy fashion.” 

“No,” she said primly, coming forward with a tray of exotic fruit smoothies. “But I think you’ll like these.” 

Then the presents were brought out. First came a pair of cargo pants from Jean and Ororo and then, from the Professor, a first edition of three sea stories by Joseph Conrad. 

“That book inspired me a great deal when I was your age, Robert.” 

Bobby smiled and thanked him, but privately wondered when he would get around to reading the book. Reading fiction was something you did when you had a book report. He was more excited about Scott’s gift: the latest Tony Hawk game for the PS2 they had just installed in the recreation room. He looked up from the enticing screenshots on the cover to thank Scott, and saw him and Jean arm-in-arm, beaming back at him collectively. Bobby’s smile missed a gear for a second and he looked back down at the box, a humiliating blush coloring his ears. 

“Hey,” Scott scolded, “You should read the card, too, not just tear open the present.” 

Bobby responded with apologies (that was also his mother’s favorite birthday reprimand) and pulled open the envelope. Inside was a printout from a cheesy greeting card program with the words: “Redeemable for driving lessons with Scott Summers.” His eyes widened and he looked up speechless at his young teacher who was grinning in satisfaction. Bobby felt his chest expand like a billowing sail on the favorable winds of that smile. 

So, against all odds, the day started well. However, it grew bittersweet after breakfast when Jean and Scott announced that they were going away to visit her parents for the rest of the weekend, and Ororo and the Professor both returned to their offices to work. Bobby used the phone in the rec room to call his parents. Their enthusiasm seemed, at best, polite and Ronny’s refusal to come to the phone stung badly. He hung up and realized that the sadness had found its way back into his heart. He ended up spending the day just as he had planned and feared: alone with his thoughts, wondering if he would ever know the kind of love Scott and Jean shared. 

 

The summer seemed to accelerate as it passed. The efforts of the team came together, and suddenly the concept of a school was turning into the reality of one. But as they made their final assaults on the macro issues, the micro ones seemed to rise up out of nowhere to cut into their time and sap their energy. Now it was one week before the first day of classes, and everyone had woken up weary of the battle. 

At breakfast, the Professor was going over budget statements, Ororo was jotting down notes for history classes that would have to serve students at many different grade levels, and Jean and Scott were going through thick envelopes of counseling materials sent out by the State. 

“God, Jean, I can’t believe this mumbo-jumbo,” Scott grumbled. “Do we really need all this politically-correct crap?” 

“Not everyone’s a stoic little soldier like you, Scott,” she answered with an edge, as if it weren’t the first time she’d answered this question. “I think our students should know right from the beginning that we are here to help them with whatever they’re going through. We have to encourage them to speak up and not wait until they’re in a crisis to come forward with problems or questions.” 

“But look at this stuff!” he waved at the pages in exasperation. “‘Rekindling Self-Esteem’, ‘Race and Oppression’!” He pulled another folder from the envelope. “Oh yeah, here it comes: ‘Combating Homophobia in Our Schools: Diversity and Acceptance’.” 

Bobby, who had been engrossed in the sports section of the _Times_ snapped his head up and took in Scott’s sneer. His body temperature started dropping. 

“That’s what we need, isn’t it?” Scott went on loudly. “Like we won’t have enough trouble getting the world to accept mutants. Now we have to sell them _gay_ mutants!” 

Bobby felt himself go pale. Unbidden, his fantasy images of Scott, naked and hungry, appeared before his eyes, and he became aware of his crushing shame. He felt like the awful truth could be seen all over his face and he wanted to bolt from the room. But before he could even look away, Jean caught his eye, and he knew she saw his distress. He pulled the newspaper up around himself like a shield. 

“Scott!” The Professor turned towards him looking annoyed. “Perhaps if you were telepathic, you would come to realize that human sexuality is far more complex and multifaceted than the usual discourse of this society would have us believe.” 

“But, Professor —” Scott began. 

Xavier interrupted him. “Being a teacher means accepting that your students are going to be a diverse group and they will often show you aspects of their lives that are hard for you to understand. I suggest you look on it as a learning opportunity.” 

Xavier put his budget folder beside him in his chair and balanced his breakfast tray on his lap. He wheeled away from the table and back towards the serving area. 

Frustrated, Scott called after him, “I’m just saying that if a kid is already dealing with being a mutant, do we have to throw this at him, too?” 

“Scott!” Jean shouted in exasperation, “You can’t be serious!” 

“I think you have a point,” Ororo said calmly as she passed Scott’s chair with her tray in her hand. “Perhaps we shouldn’t enroll gay students. Or black ones, either. I hear they also have some trouble integrating into ‘normal’ society.” She joined Xavier at the serving station. 

“Fine,” Scott muttered, stubborn pride stiffening his spine. “Beat up the straight white guy. That’s an easy solution!” 

“And no disabled students, Ororo,” the Professor added, only just holding back his laughter. “I hear they need _ramps!_ ” 

Scott dismissed their taunts with a wave. “Come on, Bobby. Let’s go install the whiteboards.” 

From behind his newsprint fortress Bobby mumbled, “In a minute.” 

“Not in a minute. Now!” He snapped the newspaper out of Bobby’s hands. 

Bobby looked stunned and his face seemed to morph through several emotions before crystallizing in anger. “Maybe I don’t want to work today! Maybe I don’t care about the stupid whiteboards!” 

Ororo and the Professor turned in surprise and stared. Bobby saw Scott’s face redden and he winced in anticipation. 

But before Scott could lash out, Jean was standing beside him. 

“I think Bobby deserves a day off, Scott,” she said gently, putting a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder. “We’ve been working him pretty hard.” 

Scott bristled. “Working hard is how things gets done, Jean.” 

“I know,” she continued calmly but firmly. “And it’s partly because of Bobby’s hard work that we’re going to be ready for the other students next week.” 

Scott threw his hands up in the air. “Fine! I guess everybody’s on their own today!” He turned and stormed out of the room. “What a _great_ way to build a team!” 

Bobby was staring down at the table, trying to control his breathing. He was aware of Jean sitting down opposite him. 

_Go away,_ he thought angrily, and was totally flabbergasted when he heard a response in his head. 

_*Bobby, I’d like to talk for a minute if that’s okay.*_

He grabbed the edge of the table as if it were the only thing keeping him from shooting into orbit. He stammered half sentences at Jean: “Are you…? What did you…? Did you hear…?” 

She looked embarrassed and said quietly, “Bobby, I’m sorry! Didn’t you know I was telepathic?” 

“You’re tele _kinetic_ , I thought!” he whispered back anxiously, turning to see where the Professor and Ororo were. Heads carefully averted, they were discreetly exiting through the side doors of the dining room. 

“Telekinetic, yes; but also a telepath.” She spoke in soothing tones, as to a spooked horse. “But not a very powerful one. Nothing like Professor Xavier. Bobby, come with me,” she said, standing. He rose and followed her out the main doors of the dining room, head hanging like he was in deep trouble. 

They went into the small infirmary down the hall. Scott had told him that Jean was setting up a more extensive med-lab downstairs (in the mysterious sub-basement! The science fiction realm!) but this small wood-paneled room — a basic school nurse’s office — would serve for dispensing bandages, flu-shots, and medical advice. 

She invited him to sit in one of the chairs and then sat down beside him. He looked at his feet. 

“Bobby,” she began. “First of all I want to say that I don’t use my powers to eavesdrop on anyone.” He didn’t respond. “Do you understand?” 

“Yes,” he murmured, all but inaudibly. 

“And even if I were to pick up a stray thought, I would treat anything I learned as strictly confidential.” 

He couldn’t help but look up at her, testing her face for signs of what she knew. But her expression was kind and serious. He felt tears in his eyes and looked away, blinking. 

“I’m your physician here at the school, and that means that anything I learn from you stays between us.” She reached over and gently put a hand on his. “Yikes! That’s cold,” she said in surprise. “I’ll bet your body temperature is at least ten degrees Celsius below _homo-sapiens_ normal now.” 

“Sorry,” Bobby murmured sheepishly. 

“Don’t be sorry. It just reminds me that I haven’t got around to giving you a physical yet. Understanding your mutation will help me be a better doctor for you. We’ll make an appointment.” 

They sat in silence for a moment before she began again. “Bobby, I know Scott’s your teacher, but sometimes it’s best not to pay too much attention to everything he says. Before he came here, he had a lot of bad years. He experienced things kids your age shouldn’t have to. He learned to be a tough guy and say things that tough guys say.” 

“I don’t care,” Bobby whispered, his voice choked. 

“But what he says and who he is aren’t always the same things. He would never let down any of his students. Not if they had addiction issues, not if they were another color. Not if they were questioning their sexuality.” 

Bobby looked away and muttered, “Whatever.” 

“Trust me. I know from personal experience that he’s a difficult man to love. Talking about feelings makes him antsy. But Bobby, he cares a lot about you.” He looked back at her, frowning, trying not to tear up again. “You are his student and his friend, and it means a lot to Scott that you like him.” 

“I do like him.” 

“I know.” 

They looked each other in the eye, saying things silently that could not be spoken aloud. 

“It’s not your fault,” she told him, “if you’re more mature than he is sometimes.” 

That made Bobby smile. 

Jean smirked back in a “I’m a bad girl” way, but then suddenly her smile dropped and she got a distant look on her face. 

Bobby didn’t understand what was happening, but a few seconds later he heard her voice in his head saying, _*Bobby’s with me, Professor. Can I send him to meet her?*_

Now that Jean’s telepathy wasn’t catching him by surprise, he noted that her mental voice was different than Professor Xavier’s. It was like a single bird calling in the forest rather than the entire dawn chorus the old man evoked. 

“Bobby,” she turned to him, the telepathic conversation clearly finished. “A new student has just arrived with her parents. They’re in the front driveway.” 

Bobby’s eyes snapped open almost audibly. “A new student? But we’re not starting for a week!” 

“She’s here to help us set up, same as you. She’s something of a computer whiz. And judging from what Scott told us in the staff meeting, the two of you could use some help.” 

Bobby was embarrassed. Scott had said that if they just read the manuals, they could figure anything out. But with the school’s complex new computer network, that hadn’t quite proven to be the case… 

Jean continued, “Could you go greet them and bring them to the Professor’s office?” 

Bobby liked being trusted for such an ambassadorial role. He rose and headed for the door excitedly, calling over his shoulder, “Sure, no problem.” He stopped and lingered a minute in the open door, really looking at Jean Grey for the first time. He realized he had never given her a chance. She wasn’t the gawky Amazon he had seen through jealous eyes. She had beautiful large eyes, and the feathery wings of her hair outlined and softened her serious face. Most importantly, she seemed to care about what happened to him. 

Jean looked up and cocked her head. “What is it?” 

“Thanks for talking to me,” he said seriously. 

She nodded and responded with equal conviction. “No problem. That’s what I’m here for. Now, go! Don’t keep them waiting.” 

Bobby made his way down the hall thinking about what it meant to be there for someone in need. He thought about the mutant kids at the Tuesday night meetings. He thought about the students who would be arriving in a week. What kind of emotional support were they going to need? Bobby wondered if there might not be something he could do to help. 

He reached the lobby and moved to open the big front door. But before he did, he heard the sound of high-pitched shouting outside. He peeked through one of the glass panels that flanked the door and saw a dark blue Prius parked in the drive. The back door was open but he couldn’t see in. What he could see was a teenage girl in a neat blouse and skirt. She had long brown hair which was pulled back tight and held with clip. She was short but looked around the same age as Bobby. She had a slim but nicely curved body. Her face, too, might have been pretty if it wasn’t screwed up in paroxysms of frustration. She was flinging her hands in the air and throwing herself against the side of the car as if acting in a silent movie. Bobby leaned close to the glass and heard: 

“Mother! Leave me alone! If I had _wanted_ those clothes, I would have _packed_ them, wouldn’t I?!! Yes, I _know_ you put them in the other bag. I do not _want_ that bag! That bag is _grotesque!!”_

She punctuated the last word by slamming the car door and running at full speed up the steps of the mansion. Bobby watched her approach and was gripped by helpless horror as he realized she wasn’t slowing down. She was going to slam straight into the heavy wooden door! He didn’t know whether he was relieved or even more horrified when, instead of concussing herself, she simply passed through the door as if it weren’t there and came to a skidding halt on the dark hardwood floor. 

Panting a bit, she looked around the lobby with interest (her anger having apparently evaporated in an instant). She spotted Bobby and put on a big smile. 

“Hi, I’m Kitty Pryde. You’re Bobby, right? You make ice! ‘Endothermic transfiguration’ or something.” 

Bobby realized he was kind of crushed up into the corner like an umbrella stand. He stepped forward attempting to get the ambassador thing right, smiling and sticking out a hand for her to shake. But just as she reached formally for his hand (with no little amusement), he retracted it and she almost stumbled. 

“Wait, how’d you know I was Bobby? What do you know about me?” 

“Relax, I’m not a spy,” she laughed. “Or a telepath! Do they freak you out a bit? They do me! Anyway, when Professor X and Jean visited my house, they told me there was already one student here.” 

“Oh!” said Bobby, attempting to climb back on the horse, “That would be me!” And failing. 

“That’s what I meant.” Kitty covered her face. “Okay, maybe I should phase back outside and come in again.” 

The door opened and a handsome man in his forties entered. Bobby realized it had to be Kitty’s father. The woman who followed, staring daggers at Kitty, was clearly her mother. Except for their different ages, they could have been the same person. 

Talking to parents was much easier for Bobby than talking to a girl his age, and he stepped forward with his charm securely back in place. “Mr. and Mrs. Pryde? I’m Bobby Drake. Welcome to the School for Gifted Youngsters.” 

He shook hands and made small talk before showing the three of them to Xavier’s office. Bobby knocked on the door and waited, sort of hoping the response would be telepathic so he could show off his special rapport with the Headmaster. But instead, the Professor merely called out, “Come in.” 

Kitty pushed passed him and opened the door enthusiastically. Her parents followed her inside leaving Bobby standing there like a lost tourist. 

The Professor seemed delighted to see them. “Carmen, Theresa, please come in. Excuse the mess — last minute details before the school year begins. And how are you, Kitty? It’s wonderful to finally have you here in Westchester.” 

Bobby watched as Kitty put on yet another persona, stepping forward to shake Xavier’s hand like a politician. “Nice to see you again, Professor. The campus is even more beautiful than in the pictures. I’m very excited to be here.” 

Bobby’s jaw kind of dropped at her confident manner. He had known Xavier for two months, but still felt a bit nervous around him. He lingered at the door watching the smiling Pryde parents sit down with the Professor and their mutant daughter. 

Xavier looked up at him and said, “Thank you, Robert. That will be all.” 

Bobby closed the door quietly and withdrew. He was going to head up the stairs to his room, but instead sat down on the steps and stared back at the closed office door. He was trying to imagine what it would have been like to arrive at the school like that — the Drake family pulling up to the gates, impressed that Bobby had been chosen for such a special destiny. Then they would all have stepped proudly into Xavier’s office to hear the old man wax enthusiastic about their son’s mutant potential. Even Ronny would have been impressed. He’d forgive Bobby for leaving him behind. 

His reverie was interrupted when Kitty suddenly slid through Xavier’s closed door into the front hall. She looked deeply aggravated, her face red and her mouth in a grimace, but then she noticed him sitting there and her expression changed again on a dime. 

“Hi, Bobby!” she bubbled. With a happy smile, she straightened her sweater and marched over to sit beside him. 

“Hey. Um, everything okay?” he ventured cautiously. “You looked kind of, well, pissed off.” 

“You do have a mother, don’t you?” She inquired with a bewildering kind of animated seriousness. 

“Well, yeah,” he replied dorkily. 

“Then you know that the normal laws of logic, propriety and even _physics_ do not operate in her immediate vicinity.” 

Bobby laughed. “Oh yeah, I do. But are fathers really any better?” 

She answered like an expert on CNN. “Oh, of course. There is no comparison. Mothers are put on this planet to make us mad.” She sighed theatrically and suddenly seemed glum again. Her mood swings kind of unnerved him. He had noticed the same with the girls at school in the last year. They weren’t like guys who just kind of grunted and got on with it. 

“It’s nice that your parents brought you down,” he ventured. “I saw the Illinois plates.” 

“Yeah, I guess it was supposed to be a nice thing, but two days together, locked in a small car… I would scream, but I might set off the sprinklers.” 

Bobby smiled. “You’re from Chicago?” 

“Deerfield. Suburbia, you know?” 

“Yeah, me too. Boston suburbs.” 

“So I hear. ‘Let’s PAAAK the CAAAHH!’” 

Bobby blushed. He wished he could find a sharp comeback, but the girl’s quick wit had him intimidated. “Listen,” he began. “Are your parents going to be talking with Professor Xavier for a while?” 

“I think so,” she nodded, “You know, money and emergency phone numbers and stuff.” 

“Why don’t we go sit outside?” 

She looked back towards the closed office, a little worried. 

“Don’t worry. Xavier can always find us,” he said, tapping his forehead. Maybe he couldn’t keep up with her wit, but he was still the experienced one at the school. He reached out a hand and she took it with surprising shyness. 

They headed out from the front door under cloudy skies, and Bobby felt it might rain soon. Lately, he could sense the moisture in the air much more keenly, and he felt the desire to draw it close to him and freeze it. Getting more in touch with his powers was the most exciting thing in the world, but on another level he felt like he was turning into something alien — something people in his old life wouldn’t recognize when he returned some day. 

As they walked, Bobby began pointing out features of the campus to her with special emphasis on the work he and Scott had done. A sardonic smile was growing on her face as he began to strut more and more, pointing with broad sweeps of his long arms, walking backwards and talking faster and faster. 

“Wow, Bobby,” she said. “You are definitely the Big Man on Campus.” 

“Huh?” He reined himself in and replied shyly, “Um, more like ‘only man on campus’.” 

Her sardonic expression melted into a frown. “I’m sorry. I’m enjoying the tour. Just ignore me if I get sarcastic. It’s a defense mechanism. Especially when I’m in a new situation, I become a total smartass.” 

Bobby was touched by her apology. “Is that your other mutant ability?” 

“Yes,” she replied with a grin. “Devastating sarcasm rays and soul-crushing irony beams.” 

They sat on the stone benches by the fountain, silent for a few minutes before Bobby asked, “Did you know any other mutants back home?” 

“No! No way.” She poked at pebbles with her toe. “Well, there was this one boy I suspected. Twice when he was called on by our asshole physics teacher, the lights in the school shorted out. But I never dared ask him. If I asked _,_ someone might wonder about _me_ , right?” 

“I understand,” Bobby nodded. He was kind of scared to ask the next question. “How did your parents find out about your powers?” 

He had expected it to be difficult for her to answer, but she actually smiled. “It was never much of a secret. One night when I was 13, I went to bed early with a headache. My mom thought it had to do with, you know, my period.” Bobby blushed again but nodded and she went on. “I was having this nightmare about these killers, and they had gotten into my room and they had me backed up against a wall.” 

“I have dreams like that,” he told her encouragingly. 

“But just before they killed me or whatever, I suddenly had this clear idea that if I really tried, I could squeeze myself through the wall. And I did it. I could feel the wall slipping through me like I was swimming in pudding. So the killers were gone and I was safe, but then it happened.” 

“What?” 

“I fell through my bed, through the floor and down into the living room where my parents were watching Leno.” 

“Holy shit!” Bobby was agog. “Were they… Did they totally lose it?” 

“Um, yeah but it was okay. I mean, I was the one who was screaming and they… I guess they had to focus on me and not on their own worries.” She took a deep breath and looked a little shaken. She gave him a small smile. “That’s the first time I ever told anyone that story.” 

Bobby was speechless. He was trying to imagine his own parents seeing him make ice, and fear clutched at his stomach. He remembered the night his powers had first manifested. He had been alone, terrified — and yet his first and only impulse had been to get out of the house before they saw him. Even here on the front lawn of Xavier’s school with another mutant teen, he felt shame course through him. What would it be like to have parents like Kitty’s? Parents who cared about what happened to their kids? 

Kitty saw that something was wrong and asked quietly, “Did your parents have a hard time accepting your powers?” 

Bobby couldn’t bring himself to answer. The clouds overhead were growing darker. 

“What?” Kitty prompted. “Was it really bad? They didn’t send you to a doctor or something did they? I heard about one kid —” 

“They don’t know I’m a mutant. They think this place is just a prep school.” 

Kitty’s eyes widened. 

“And that’s fine with me,” Bobby said quickly to cut off whatever she was going to say. “I don’t want them to know! Just another reason to hate me.” 

“Come on, I’m sure your parents don’t…” But she trailed off as if it had just occurred to her that some parents might, in fact, hate their offspring. 

Bobby sat up, mad at himself for turning the mood sour. “Hey, Kitty, let’s get your bags inside before it rains.” 

They stood and began walking back to the driveway in silence. Bobby felt horrible, like a bad host, but then he got a wicked idea and said innocently, “We can sort of forget to bring in the _grotesque_ bag if you want.” 

Kitty’s mouth fell open and she slapped him hard in the arm. “You _heard_ that? It’s not my fault! My mother is such a loser sometimes; I can’t stand it! If you saw the things she wanted me to wear. Arghhhhhh, you would die, I swear it.” 

She squeezed his arm painfully. 

“Ow! Mercy!” he cried. They had arrived at the Pryde’s car. She stood behind it as he opened the driver’s door. “You have a lot of stuff?” 

He popped the trunk and, as it swung open she looked in guiltily. 

“Uh, you might say that. Feeling strong, BMOC?” 

They met Scott as they were on their way up the stairs with the second load of matching luggage. Kitty right away put on her professional face and told Scott she was sure they’d be able to solve the network problems together. He responded to her manners like a courtier delighted to see that protocol was still alive at the palace. He and Bobby had a quick huddle about which room to put her in before he left the mansion on errands, swinging his car keys on his finger as he headed out the door. 

“You’re pretty good at that, Ms. Pryde.” Bobby said with a quirked smile. 

“What do you mean, _Mister_ Drake?” She asked innocently, following him down the hall to her new room. 

“Making good first impressions on the adults.” 

“I was Student Council President last year. I learned how to get what I wanted from the administration.” 

“I’ll have to remember to stay on your good side then, Madame President.” He opened the door with a flourish and a bow, saying, “ _Voilà!_ Your home away from home.” 

After depositing her bags in her room, Bobby and Kitty returned downstairs just as her parents were leaving Xavier’s office. The Prydes declined a tour of the campus, explaining that they had to meet cousins on Long Island for lunch. Kitty was all but exploding trying to shepherd them out of the mansion without appearing rude in front of Xavier. 

The threatening clouds had still not produced any rain, and Bobby spied on the Pryde family from the front door as they said their farewells. Kitty first fell into her father’s arms, and they whispered in each other’s ears. As they pulled apart, he kissed the top of her head. When her mother tried to hug her, she stiffened at first but then melted into the embrace, perhaps realizing that she really was being left there and she’d even miss the mother-daughter bickering. 

A somewhat subdued Kitty then joined Bobby on a tour through the mansion where he tried to suppress the worst of his bouncing dumb-puppy enthusiasm. Kitty was amused by how many things were emblazoned with an ‘X’ logo. Bobby had never really noticed this little eccentricity of the Professor’s and he found it kind of disturbing. Was Xavier really so into himself? As they kept touring the school, he picked up Kitty’s habit of referring to the Headmaster as ‘X’. It made him feel pleasantly rebellious. 

They visited all the classrooms and facilities, and Kitty started asking a million sensible questions that no one had thought about yet, from basic logistics to school spirit events. He realized that she was going to be a really big asset, and it made him a little jealous. 

The sky looked like it had changed its mind about raining. Bobby suggested that, since they had a rare day off, they should go for a hike through the estate. They made sandwiches in the kitchen and packed them in Bobby’s backpack. Kitty ran upstairs to change and returned ten minutes later in jeans, a light purple top and hiking boots with her thick, wavy hair free from its clips. 

For the next hours, as they explored the woods and meadows of Xavier’s domain, they talked about their lives, their futures and what it meant to be a mutant. She asked for the low-down on everyone at the mansion and, feeling a bit wicked, Bobby told her all the dirt he had gathered, and all the personality quirks he had witnessed. 

He also told her about the youth group meetings in New York and Kitty asked if she could come along the next day. Bobby found himself hesitating a bit at the thought — as if this girl wanted a piece of everything in his life. But he really had no good excuse for saying no, so he agreed. The fact was, after weeks of being the only teen in a house full of adults, he realized how relaxing it was to be with someone his own age. 

It was just after five o’clock when the rain finally arrived, and they came in through the garden door in the back of the mansion that led into the arboretum. There they found Ororo tending to her orchids. She was lost in her work and they found themselves watching silently, hypnotized by the way she flowed between the rows of flowers, manipulating a small, almost invisible cloud of vapor around the flowers, humming quietly to herself as she tended delicately to their needs. 

Bobby put a finger to his lips to indicate that they shouldn’t disturb her and they slipped discreetly from the room. 

Everyone was at dinner that night and spirits were high. Somehow Kitty’s arrival had rekindled the excitement about the start of school. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything that might go wrong the following week, that night they all felt like teammates on a great adventure. 

Over dessert, Kitty began listing her observations about the school and making suggestions. She had the knack of speaking her mind without sounding arrogant and everyone got into the spirit of the huddle, coming up with more new ideas than they had in weeks. Even Bobby, who usually hung back and let the adults lead in matters of school planning had the nerve to bring up his idea that they start a peer-counseling group for the students. Jean immediately told him it was a great idea and the Professor agreed, asking him to write up a plan and submit it by Friday. 

Bobby snuck a look at Scott whose face was blank, and he felt a pang. Didn’t Scott get it? Did he think it was a dumb idea? Bobby pulled back into his shell while the group discussed Kitty’s idea for a Halloween dance. 

After dinner, Kitty asked Scott and Bobby to show her the computer network, and Bobby was relieved to see that she couldn’t make it magically work with three keystrokes. She figured they would need at least a couple of days of fooling around before everything was the way they wanted it. By the time they finished, it was close to 11 and they headed for the rec room to watch the news. 

Ororo and Jean were already there, Jean half watching the TV and half reading a medical journal. Scott sat on the couch and picked up the TV remote as usual. He was always fiddling with the volume and occasionally switching channels when a certain newscast didn’t suit him. It drove Jean crazy, which kind was kind of amusing to see. Bobby took one of the big armchairs while Kitty went over to the bookshelf to check the selection. 

Bobby sat and watched Scott’s profile. He realized he was waiting for a sign that he had been forgiven for his disrespect this morning, but so far Scott had shown him no special regard. Bobby sighed and turned to watch the TV. He wasn’t really interested in the top stories about a change in interest rates and an oil spill in Alaska. Outside, the rain was falling steadily, and the sound slowly lulled him half into sleep. 

Kitty was saying something to Ororo about rescuing ducks from oil spills when suddenly Scott shouted out, “Quiet!” and he turned up the volume on the TV. Bobby’s eyes opened in time to catch the title “Mutant Incident” below the anchor’s head, before the show cut to a remote feed. The report was coming from a mall in Pasadena, California and he heard Jean say, “Oh no” when the reporter announced that a mutant teen was dead after a confrontation with police. 

“Professor,” Scott said out loud, though Bobby realized he was calling mentally. “Are you watching this?” 

_*I am, Scott, thank you,*_ came the response, broadcast for all. _*I have the TV on in my room.*_

Kitty looked startled by the mental intrusion. Bobby caught her eye and gestured to her to join him. She moved over and sat on the padded arm of his chair. 

The reporter was explaining that the young man had begun acting in a “suspicious and threatening manner” in the food court of the mall. Police had been called. 

A police spokesman appeared on camera and said with self-important professionalism: “The youth may have been under the influence of a street drug, and we had hoped to apprehend him without incident. However, when it became apparent that he was a mutant and he began to use his powers in a threatening manner, the situation became much more serious.” 

Suddenly, they were watching security camera footage — a high angle and blurry images. Sounds of policemen shouting at the youth to lie down on the floor. He was tall, maybe 17 or 18, in a sleeveless t-shirt, baggy jeans, and a baseball cap. He made little lunges at the police and then backed off again as if trying to scare them away. His movements were erratic and out of control. Bobby thought the cop was right: he looked stoned. And then the kid raised his arms and what appeared to be rows of tiny tentacles, each maybe 3 inches long, rose from his arms, their tips glowing, little arcs of electricity flowing between them. 

They could clearly hear him shouting, “Get away from me! Get the ____ away from me!” the expletive silenced to protect the viewers. 

Then the police were yelling something. Then the sound of shooting. It was all terribly quick; tragic and irrevocable. Kitty’s hand moved towards Bobby’s and he took it and held on tightly. 

The police spokesman was back on the screen explaining that the officer could not take a chance that the dead youth’s powers would not have harmed someone in the mall or the policeman himself. There was no investigation planned. 

“No investigation?” Ororo asked incredulously, her voice distant, breathy. Then she was screaming at the TV: “Your policeman shot a child, you monster!” Outside, the wind suddenly howled and rain lashed savagely at the window. Bobby caught his breath. He had never seen that kind of anger before from his teacher. Lightning flashed and he realized with alarm that it was probably she who was ramping up the storm. 

_*Ororo, please.*_ came Xavier’s psychic voice. _*We must remain calm. We shall see what we can find out, and then formulate a plan of action.*_

Her only response was to wipe a tear from her eye with the edge of her clenched fist and look away. The weather slowly calmed again. 

_*Scott, we need a recording of that security footage. The child was some kind of energy manipulator. Let’s see if we can find out more.*_

“Kitty,” Scott said crisply in the commanding voice he used when they were training. “We need you to find us that footage online.” 

She didn’t answer right away, just stared at the screen with tears in her eyes. Bobby could feel her hand shaking. 

He spoke quietly to her, “Kitty? You can do that, can’t you?” 

She snapped out of her daze, turned to Scott and nodded. “Yes, sure. I’ll log onto a workstation in the library.” She stood a little shakily. “Bobby could you help?” 

“Sure,” he responded gently, getting up beside her. “Glad to.” 

When they got to the library, Kitty got right to work, searching through various sources until she found the longest, highest-resolution clip available. She bypassed the news website’s attempts to prevent direct download of its material and then uploaded the clip to the teachers’ partition of the Institute’s server. She emailed the faculty the location of the stored clip and then logged off. She was fast and professional, and Bobby did nothing but sit there and be impressed. Still, somehow he felt that she needed him beside her in order to get the job done — that he was her anchor. 

By the time they were finished, they had seen the footage five times. Short and blurry as it was, Bobby thought he’d never forget it as long he lived. 

As they approached the stairs, they saw Scott and Jean climbing into the sub-basement elevator. 

“Scott,” Bobby called. “Kitty found the footage. Is there anything else we can —” 

“No, Bobby,” he responded curtly. “That’s all. You two go to bed.” 

The elevator door closed with a hiss and they were left alone, feeling unsatisfied and shut out. 

Kitty was silent as she and Bobby climbed the stairs, and he didn’t know if he should say something more or let her be. She murmured a quiet goodnight and turned away from him, heading for the girls’ corridor while he turned towards his room in the boys’. He wondered what the teachers were up to. Meeting in the sub-basement and discussing the safety of their students? He wished he had been included. 

As he brushed his teeth and put acne cream on some new eruptions, he kept seeing the California mutant in his mind’s eye. He stared at his own reflection and saw himself in that mall, helpless to stop the ice he was producing, surrounded by shouting, armed police. A shudder ran through his body. He knew what he had to do. 

Two minutes later, he stood at Kitty’s door. He could hear her crying on the other side. He hesitated a minute and then knocked. There was a pause and then the sound of her loudly blowing her nose. She opened the door in pink pajamas with some girly manga pattern which seemed a bit young for her 16 years. 

She motioned him inside with a shake of her head. It was a room for two girls. Her side of the room had already been adorned with a picture of her family and a larger picture of a golden retriever. She sat on her bed and he took the desk chair. He looked at the book open in front of him; an introduction to particle physics. On the bedside table was “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. 

“So,” he ventured with dark humor. “How’d you like your first day at the School for Gifted Youngsters.” 

She laughed, but a little sob piggybacked on the laughter. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a mess. It’s just…” At a loss for words, she shrugged. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It sure is.” 

She took a minute to continue. “I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought that once I got here — to the mutant sanctuary — that everything would be better. Safer.” 

“You are safe here, Kitty.” 

“I know. But this country isn’t safe for us. Maybe this whole world isn’t.” 

“That kid… He didn’t do anything wrong.” Bobby said quietly. He realized how hurt and angry he felt. “So he got high and made an idiot of himself at the mall — lots of kids do that! He shouldn’t be dead.” 

They sat in silence another minute before Kitty spoke. “Have you read about Anne Frank?” 

“Yeah, the Dutch girl the Nazis killed.” 

“Actually, the Franks were German Jews who were hidden in a small apartment in Amsterdam for more than two years before the Nazis captured them.” She paused again as if saying the words cost her a lot. “In the first months after my powers manifested, I couldn’t really leave the house. If I wasn’t paying attention, I would phase through things without any control. I would go to sit down on the couch and I’d end up in the basement. It would take me 10 minutes to open the fridge because my hand kept phasing through the handle. 

“My parents told everyone they had decided to home-school me. I basically dropped all my friends because we couldn’t risk word getting out. And my parents had to do the same with their friends and our relatives. We became this family of hermits. Then my mom quit her job so I wouldn’t have to be alone all the time. 

“Now, if you think about it, that sounds pretty nice, but we weren’t that good for each other. She really loved her job and she couldn’t help resenting what was happening to her. And me — I resented my powers and basically everything about my life. I had no one to take it out on but her. We’re still kind of messed up with each other, as you noticed.” 

Bobby asked, “What about Anne Frank? What does she have to do with you?” 

Kitty tucked her legs up to her chest and hugged them. “Her diary was one of the books I read that year. I read a _lot_ of books that year. Anyway, after I finished it, I couldn’t stop seeing myself as Anne. There I was, shut up in the house, keeping my secret from everyone. My parents would have these hushed conversations in the living room at night and I would secretly listen in.” 

The rain had not stopped and it made an insistent staccato accompaniment to her story. 

“They were planning what they would do if the government went after mutants — wanted to lock us up. Or worse. They were listing which relatives and friends they thought they could trust and gathering information on how people relocate and assume new identities. I was terrified, imagining that any day we’d be running for our lives.” 

This idea shook Bobby up. Could things like that really happen? Surely not in America. All of Mike’s dire political forebodings flooded back into his brain, a commentary track over the looping image of the mutant boy being shot in Pasadena. He stood up and moved to sit beside her on the bed. 

“Do you really think it could get like that?” he asked. “Your parents were so serious about it.” 

“You know how it is; we’re Jews. We’re always waiting for the next holocaust to happen. And my dad’s father is a Survivor so it’s even more _red alert_ for him.” 

“Survivor?” Bobby asked. 

“Yeah, my granddad was in the Treblinka concentration camp when he was just a little boy,” she explained with gravity. 

His eyes widened. It was the first time he was aware of a piece of history stepping out of a book to shake his hand. He nodded slowly to Kitty and they took a moment to savor the thrilling weight of a shared secret. 

“Anyway, last year I had enough of a handle on my phasing that I was able to go back to school. Things were pretty normal again; I got most of my friends back and then I ran for student council. It was actually all really great… as long as I didn’t think about my powers and all the mutant stuff until I got home at night. 

“But at home, the fear never really left. Me and my parents were always on guard; worried that I’d slip and be discovered, worried what the future would bring. 

“When X contacted us last March, it was the first time we felt like we weren’t the Frank family hiding in that apartment with the Nazis passing by in the streets just outside. 

“And today, sitting in his office with him so pleased to see us, talking about my future, about where I might go to college after I graduate, I felt like I was safe. For the first time since I was 13, I felt like I was free.” 

“And then this fucking shooting,” Bobby said quietly. 

“As you say: ‘this fucking shooting’.” 

Bobby was overwhelmed. He wanted to reach out and touch her and he wanted to say something, but he had no words of comfort. Then suddenly she looked up at him with a nakedness that made him catch his breath. She shifted over quickly and kissed him on the cheek before pulling back again to her end of the bed. He stared at her with his mouth open until she laughed at his discombobulation. 

“You have interesting eyes, Bobby,” she told him. “Like a husky. No! That’s good! I love dogs.” 

“Woof!” he responded and she laughed again. 

“Thanks for coming here tonight. You’re a pretty awesome guy. And your peer counseling group will be really good. I can tell.” 

The praise, welcome as it was, embarrassed him, especially after the kiss, so he just answered “Woof, woof!” and stood up. 

She stood, too and opened her door. “Go, boy! Leave my room now. Your mistress orders you back to the kennels!” 

He exited backwards, whining in canine misery, calling out as she closed the door, “Breakfast is at 7:30!” And then he was standing in the hall touching his cheek where she had kissed him. 


	8. Measured Response

Kitty hated mornings. She always had. Apparently that antipathy wasn’t shared by the residents of the School for Gifted Youngsters. As she lay in bed cursing her alarm clock, hoping against hope that no one _really_ wanted to get up before ten, she heard the sounds of movement all around her. Worse than movement: clear-eyed, willing and eager movement. 

Still, she couldn’t really complain. There she was in her room at her new school. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining from behind the curtains. She was waking up in a school full of amazing, intelligent mutants who were going to be her teachers. And she had a new friend in Bobby Drake. Initial assessment: cute even if he wasn’t totally hot. All in all, she felt that things were pretty good. Then, she remembered last night’s news broadcast and the dead mutant in Pasadena. Her adrenaline started pumping and she was suddenly completely alert. The knock on her door almost made her jump. 

“Come in,” she said loudly. 

The door opened and Ororo stuck in her head. “Are you awake, Kitty?” 

“Sure, I was just about to get up.” Kitty thought she would kill to have such beautiful hair. 

“I wanted to see how you were doing.,” Ororo said in her soft but certain voice. “I feel bad about last night; I should have talked to you before you went to bed — made sure you didn’t need to talk about what you saw. But the Professor had us in conference and by the time we were free, you were already asleep.” 

“Bobby came to see me. I was okay.” 

“He’s a good boy,” Ororo told her, and Kitty couldn’t help producing a little secret smile. Ororo raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “Kitty, we need your expertise again. We’re checking media response to the shooting and we were wondering if you could see what’s being said around the Internet.” 

Kitty felt a note of excitement strike in her like a clear bell. She always enjoyed being given a chance to show what she could do. Furthermore, her parents had tried to shelter her from any bad news about mutants, so the request made her feel doubly appreciated. Her days of hiding were over; she was ready to be part of the action. “Sure. Report by noon?” 

“Actually, the Professor would like it right after breakfast.” 

“I can do that! I’ll just shower quick and be right down.” 

“Excellent. I’ll see you soon.” 

By the time she returned from the girl’s bathroom, Kitty was working up a mental list of the sites she would check. As she pulled on a White Sox sweatshirt, she was already booting her laptop. She barely bothered brushing her hair. Kitty in computer land. Sort of like phasing. The material world just didn’t exist. 

“Hello?” she asked the screen in exasperation. “Mr. Wifi network, where are you? Damn.” She tucked the laptop under her arm and headed for the network room where she ran a couple of scripts to kick the wireless network into gear. “If I can wake up at this hour, so can you, Mr. Wifi.” 

She was already surfing the web, laptop balanced in her left hand, as she passed the rec room where Ororo and Bobby were watching the news while they ate from bowls of cereal in their laps. Bobby reminded her of Scott as he rapidly changed channels in search of commentary on the shooting. 

When he caught sight of her, he had a mouthful of cereal and couldn’t do much more than nod in greeting. He looked like he wanted to be doing anything else but watching that footage again. She winked encouragement and headed for the dining room. There she found Professor Xavier and Scott going over coverage of the shooting in the _New York Times_ and the _Washington Post_ respectively, and Jean with her headphones on, taking notes in a small journal. _Satellite radio?_ Kitty wondered. 

The Professor had a portable phone with him, and over the next 15 minutes, he took three calls to placate parents who were suddenly in a panic over the security of their soon-to-arrive children. Kitty listened to his professional style — a combination of solicitude and certainty that seemed to convey the message that all their fears were understandable but unwarranted. 

“Neither the public nor the U.S. government know that the mansion is a school for mutants, Mr. Sharra,” he explained patiently. “We are taking extraordinary pains to maintain that level of secrecy.” He noticed Kitty watching him and nodded to her, a small smile on his lips. “Yes, we interview _all_ our staff carefully, of course. Extensive background checks, yes.” 

Kitty gave him a thumbs up and returned to the blogosphere where long threads were developing as matters of security and human rights were debated. She was trying to keep a cool head as she waded through the pages, but every time she read a line like, “Your next door neighbor might be taking over your mind in your sleep,” she wanted to start screaming, either in frustration or panic; she wasn’t sure. What was missing from the discussions were participants openly admitting to being mutants. They had to be there — either lurking or commenting — but not one was willing to raise a three-fingered, webbed hand and admit to it. Including her. 

Ororo and Bobby returned to the dining room looking grim. After returning his cereal bowl to the dirty dish station, he came to join her. 

“How’s the box treating us?” she asked him quietly. 

“Not good. I feel like I’m a secret menace ready to burn down your local mall and eat your baby.” 

“That sounds like Fox News,” she theorized. 

“Fox, CNN, doesn’t matter.” 

“Everybody,” Xavier raised his voice as he hung up the phone. “I want you all in my office in ten minutes so we can formulate a working plan.” 

“Professor,” Scott spoke up, “I’d like Bobby to get the whiteboards up in the arboretum and south wing classrooms and Kitty needs to get the network working —” 

“No, Scott,” Xavier interrupted. “Bobby and Kitty have been involved thus far in this troubling matter. They should be included in the meeting.” 

Scott looked at the two students in concern. “But the whiteboards… um, yessir.” 

Kitty whispered to Bobby, “Those whiteboards pretty important to him?” 

He looked embarrassed. “Don’t ask, okay?” 

They finished up their breakfasts quickly and returned to completing their reports in silence. As Kitty headed for Xavier’s office, she saw Scott and the Professor enter ahead of her, deep in conversation, Scott looking distinctly unhappy. Scott closed the door behind them and a few seconds later she stood before it burning with curiosity. She looked around to make sure she wasn’t being observed and then phased the side of her head through so only her ear was on the other side. 

“Because, Charles,” Scott was saying with no little passion. “I’m trying to protect them.” 

“I appreciate the sentiment, Scott,” Xavier responded calmly, “But how is that even possible? We cannot cut the students off from the outside world. We are trying to prepare them to live in it.” 

Scott sighed. “I just wish we could let them be kids while they’re here; learn to use their powers responsibly and train their minds without them worrying that their own country is going to proclaim open season on them the minute they leave us.” 

“It’s a lovely vision, Scott and I…” 

He paused, and then she suddenly heard his voice — the same but different — in her head. _*Kitty, if you’re going to join us, I would appreciate seeing more than your ear.*_

Blushing hotly, she phased the rest of herself into the room with her eyes lowered in embarrassment just as Jean, Ororo and Bobby — out of breath, with toothpaste staining the corner of his mouth — arrived. They all took their seats, Bobby and Kitty finding a place in the corner. 

Xavier called on each of them to report their findings. From every corner of the media, the story seemed to have the same shape. Instead of a sad and shameful tale of a young man gunned down, the angle was that mutants of unknown powers were among us, and it was time to take the threat seriously. Each of them looked grim, she noticed, except Bobby who looked more shell-shocked. 

The Professor made little comment as they spoke other than to ask for elabor-ation or clarification, a look of concern and deep concentration furrowing his brow. He then checked his watch and, at the touch of a hidden button, a panel in the antique desk slid aside with a gentle hiss and a spider-like device unfolded. It turned out to be a fancy speakerphone on which Xavier pressed a speed dial button. 

A rich, eloquent voice emerged from the speaker. “Good morning, Charles.” 

“Good morning, Henry,” Xavier responded. Ororo and Jean both called out ‘hellos’ and Xavier asked, “Can you hear us all?” 

Bobby leaned over to Kitty and whispered, “That’s Hank McCoy. He’s a mutant who works in the State Department. Department of Mutant Affairs.” 

Her eyes widened. “There’s a Department of Mutant Affairs?” she asked, impressed. Jean looked over at them and brought a silencing finger to her lips. 

“I hear you all clearly and, I might add, with distinct relief,” came the voice from the speaker. “Hello, my dear friends.” 

Xavier gave McCoy a brief summary of their research, adding his own conclusions and suppositions about how and why the reports were coming out as they were. 

“It’s not good, is it, Henry?” he asked. 

“Surprising and alarming, I would say,” McCoy responded. “It’s hardly the first such incident we’ve seen in recent years, but the story has taken hold of the public imagination in an unprecedented way.” 

Ororo folded her arms across her chest. “It’s almost like people were ready to be up in arms about the ‘mutant menace’.” 

The Professor nodded. “I agree. We’re witnessing a change in the zeitgeist. The voices calling this a human rights violation have been weak if not completely absent.” 

Jean looked up from her notes. “They might be speaking out. But if the media doesn’t want to broadcast those opinions —” 

“The Department is preparing a statement,” McCoy interrupted. “We will not mince words. A clear signal must be sent: the law protects mutants the same as any other Americans.” 

“But does it, Hank?” Scott asked. Kitty thought he sounded bitter. “We’ll only know that for sure if someone is actually prosecuted for this crime.” Jean put a supportive hand on his shoulder. 

“Henry,” the Professor said with sudden decisiveness. “I would like to see a draft of your statement as soon as possible. By 10:30 if you can manage it. Perhaps Jean can add some scientific weight to the argument.” He looked at her and she nodded. 

Kitty wondered what was going on. Why was Hank McCoy from the State Department taking orders from the Headmaster of a prep school? Why was Dr. Grey? 

McCoy’s warm baritone returned. “Scott tells me you almost suited up and flew out to the scene last night. I would have gladly joined you.” 

Xavier spoke up quickly. “One moment, Henry. I forgot to mention we have two of the students with us here.” He looked over at them. “Say hello, Bobby.” 

Bobby sat up straight and called out a little too loudly, “Hi Dr. McCoy, how are you, sir?” 

The Professor continued, “Also with us is Katherine Pryde, our new computer wizard. Children, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse yourselves at this point. Perhaps you could make Scott a happy man and get the whiteboards in place at last.” 

They left the office and walked across the lobby to sit on the steps. Bobby seemed kind of stunned, but Kitty was mulling over everything she had just observed. 

“Okay,” she said. “I’m confused.” 

He looked at her with curiosity. “About what?” 

“Does this place seem like a normal prep school to you? Why are we suddenly in the middle of the media response to the shooting? What did Dr. McCoy mean they were going to fly out to Pasadena?” 

“Of course it’s a normal prep school. I mean, not _normal_ ; it’s for mutant students, but…” Bobby paused and blinked, as if computing variables. “Actually, there are some weird things. I mean, cool weird, but still —” 

She grabbed his shoulders and fixed him with an intense stare. “Tell me everything.” 

Bobby only hesitated a minute before he began. “Well, there’s the security system. I haven’t seen much, but I get the sense that we could track, like, incoming missiles and stuff if we wanted.” 

“Interesting; what else?” 

He was warming to the subject now. “Okay, there’s the whole training thing. It’s not just gym class — Scott is going to be teaching us all combat moves. He keeps bringing up some guy named Sun Zoo.” 

“Sun Tzu,” she corrected him. “The Art of War.” 

“And then there’s the sub-basement. Do you know about the sub-basement?” 

She looked around with a paranoid twitch and lowered her voice to a hiss. “We saw them going down there last night, right? What’s there?” 

“I don’t know, exactly. Cerebro for one thing — X’s telepathy machine — but I’ve heard weird stuff. Big industrial sounds. Roars like engines. And there was one weekend when Scott took me away to Vermont. We were picking up some industrial kitchen equipment, but I had the feeling that they were doing something big here and they wanted me out of the way. There were tractor marks in the lawn and X was _not_ happy about that.” 

Her eyes were shining. “Can you show me the sub-basement?” 

“No, it’s all locked down.” 

“It doesn’t matter; I can phase us in!” 

“Kitty!” he shouted in surprise. They both looked hastily at the closed door of the Professor’s office. He continued in a whisper. “Does the word ‘telepath’ mean anything to you? Does ‘high security’?” He watched her excitement deflate. “We have to trust the teachers. They’ll tell us what we need to know.” 

“But —” 

“How about we don’t get thrown out before the term even begins?” 

She sighed and nodded. “So, what’ll we do now?” 

“Whiteboards,” he replied with a smile. “Come on, newbie, follow me.” He headed down the hall in the direction of the arboretum. 

_No changing the world without whiteboards!_ she thought ruefully and followed him. 

 

*** 

 

If Mike had been driving, they would never have ended up at the fucking mall. The last place he wanted to be the day after the shooting in Pasadena was in a herd of unthinking consumerist humanity gathered in their temple of choice. But he wasn’t driving; he didn’t even have his license yet. He was in the back seat, and it was the newly-minted driver, Paul Greenstein who was wheeling too fast around corners and generally encouraging the other two guys accompanying them to be jerks. It was Greenstein who was aiming them at the mall. 

“Hey, Haddad,” Greenstein yelled from the driver seat, “Stop sulking. You’re making me nervous.” He spun the wheel back and forth and the car waggled in the lane, causing a nearby driver to honk. “See? That was your fault!” 

They parked in the massive lot and Mike eyed the endless rows of cars wondering, not for the first time, _Who are all these people?_ The boys wandered down the corridors of themed clothing stores, each selling identical fashions with different names, and Mike felt a kind of desperate depression growing in him. The other three, on the other hand, were in high spirits. They called out to packs of girls who feigned disinterest, and generally made a scene until Security was glaring at them threateningly. 

Greenstein walked up to one self-importantly serious guard and said, “I’m a mutant! Please don’t shoot me!” He slipped a hand up his t-shirt and began poking it upwards as if an alien were going to burst from his chest. “Oh no, I feel it coming!” The guard tensed. “Oh, no no no!” Greenstein wailed and executed three perfect pit pumps which caused the other two nearly to fall down in hysterics. Mike turned around and walked in the other direction as if he didn’t know them. He wondered when he had gotten so much more mature than his contemporaries. 

Alone, he wandered through the mall, miserable, stopping at a newsstand to peruse headlines: 

_“Mutant Showdown in California Mall.” “Police Shoot Out-of-Control Mutant in Pasadena.”_

He felt too depressed to even be angry. He looked around at the shoppers and hated them all for not caring about the injustice. He caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny chrome archway of a music store. His hair was longer and more unkempt than it had been in years. In principle, he agreed with his mom’s frequent suggestions that he get it cut before school; but something was preventing him. He looked at the shaggy mop with a kind of fascination — as if there was a different Mike Haddad who might be emerging; one not so eager to be a good boy. 

He suddenly felt exposed — as if anti-consumerist sedition were written all over his face. He veered towards an electronics store and pretended to check out some discounted headphones on a rack by the entrance. He didn’t care about the ’phones; he was thinking of Bobby and wondering what would have happened to his friend in a similar showdown with police. 

“Can I help you?” came a girl’s voice behind him. 

“Huh?” he responded, coming out of his reverie. “Oh, no, sorry. I was just looking.” But what he was looking at now was a pretty Chinese teen dressed in black pants and a yellow sweater with big yellow hoop earrings. 

“Then can I _pretend_ to help you?” she said in a confidential voice. “I can’t spend one more minute in there with that bitch.” She indicated a stuffy-looking manager in a cheap power suit. 

Surprised, he smiled at her, staring into the dark depths of her beautiful eyes. He played along with her plan: “What’s the difference between these two models?” and quieter, “My name is Mike.” 

“I’m Jubilee,” she replied, meeting his stare with confidence. “And the difference, sir, is that I’m supposed to make you buy that one because we’re overstocked.” Louder, “I think you’ll enjoy the features and comfort.” She dropped her voice again. “What time is it?” 

He checked his watch. “3:15.” 

“Loretta!” she bellowed in the direction of the ‘bitch’. “Can I take my break now?” 

The manager — Loretta — excused herself from the customer she was attending to and stormed up to them. 

“Jubilee,” she said tightly, “We do not shout to each other like we’re in a gymnasium. I am with a customer.” 

“So am I,” the Chinese girl shot back, flipping a thumb at Mike. She seemed as little intimidated by her manager as she had been by Mike’s probing gaze. “Can I take my break or not?” 

“You are pushing it, lady. Fifteen minutes.” She turned on her heel and returned to the customer with an unctuous “Welllllllll, have you made any decision?” 

Soon they were sitting over sodas in the food court. Mike watched Jubilee staring at the crowd with barely concealed contempt. Somehow, her mirroring of his own sentiment made him feel better. He quickly developed a technique of covertly checking out the curves in her sweater every time he reached for his drink. 

“God!” she muttered. “I will be _so_ happy when I don’t have to come here everyday.” 

“Well, considering how much your manager likes you, the day of freedom may be sooner than later.” 

Jubilee laughed with a forceful, “Hah!” like a little slap. The smile stayed on her face as she looked him up and down, as if deciding if he was the model she would choose. “It doesn’t matter. I’m back to school next week and I’ll be able to talk my aunt out of her _brilliant_ idea that I should be working.” She put on a puppy face and whined, “But Auntie, it’s more important that I do well in my studies!” 

“You live with your aunt?” 

“Yup! Just moved here from L.A. in June.” 

He was about to ask where her parents were, but a string of awful possibilities occurred to him and he decided to save the question for later. He realized he hoped there would be a ‘later’. Instead he asked, “What school are you going to?” 

“Lincoln. It looks okay.” 

“It is. That’s where I go. You going to be a Junior?” 

“Sophomore. I have to repeat a year. Really? You go there? Cool; now I know someone.” She slurped her drink loudly and smiled wickedly around the straw at her own vulgarity. She flipped her hair and gave him that look again. “So what were you hiding from before?” 

“Was I that obvious? My friends were being jerks and I was trying to ditch them. Nice, huh?” He wondered if he should be so honest, but that was the way he was. “I’m just in a mood today, and a mall is the last place I want to be.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it.” 

“Especially with all the security idiots looking so excited. Like they’re going to be the next one to pop a mutant for the evening news.” 

He watched her freeze up and he cursed his big mouth. _Don’t get political right away, asshole!_ There was an awkward silence before she exhaled audibly, somewhere between a sigh and a shiver. 

She was looking at him more obliquely now. “Yeah, that was fucked up,” she said cautiously. “I mean, what did that kid do to deserve a bullet in the heart?” 

“Right, exactly. There had to be a way those cops could have calmed him down peacefully. It’s like they didn’t even want to!” Suddenly unable to meet her eyes, he looked at his watch. 

“I better get back,” she muttered. “It’s better if I don’t get fired before I ask my Aunt’s permission to quit.” They got up, avoiding each others’ gaze. 

He picked up both their paper cups and put them in the garbage. Feeling shy and awkward, he asked, “Uh, can I walk you back to the store?” 

A little too quickly she said, “No! I have to hit the girl’s room first so you better just —” 

“Yeah,” he replied hastily. “I have to go find my —” 

“Right. Nice meeting you, Mike.” 

“You, too, Jubilee!” He felt as if he were sliding down a sheer cliff of ice. He watched her turn and walk away and he hated himself for choking. 

But then she stopped and turned, shouting back across the food court in that brash voice, “Hey, I’ll look for you in school next week. Save me a seat in the cafeteria or whatever.” 

He smiled but couldn’t find any words before she waved and vanished down the corridor to the restrooms. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby and Kitty took the train into Manhattan late that afternoon. Kitty spent the trip reading while Bobby looked out the window, reviewing the events of the past 24 hours. Getting the whiteboards up had been relatively easy, but then after lunch a very short-tempered Scott had joined them in their efforts to make the computer network behave. Xavier had been locked away finalizing his press release, but none of them had spoken about the shooting as they worked. 

Still, every technical glitch had made them want to snap at each other, and the day had become an exercise in forced diplomacy. Bobby had felt sorry for Scott who seemed to have nowhere to place the anger he felt. The only time he had actually referred to the shooting was for a minute over lunch when he had suddenly said, “If I had been there, it might not have been that boy who ended up dead.” Jean had leaned over and squeezed his arm as if she understood something unsaid lurking behind his words. 

As the tracks thrummed beneath them, Bobby found himself slipping in and out of consciousness. After a few weeks of sleeping through the night, his insomnia had returned. The previous night, as usual, he had had no trouble falling asleep but grew restless with dreams around 3 a.m., and was finally awakened by a nightmare. In the dream, Pyro — St. John Allerdyce — and he were walking in a shopping mall (the one near his home in Boston). They were discussing giant robots or something. Pyro had definite ideas about how to fight back if you were attacked by them, as if it were a common occurrence. 

Bobby was nodding, repeating back Pyro’s advice to show he was interested. At the same time, he was taking every opportunity to run his eyes over the boy’s body. Pyro was wearing a tight blue t-shirt with a picture of a monkey on the front and Bobby could just see his erect nipples poking through. Sometimes he fell behind so he could watch the way Pryo’s hips and ass moved in his snug jeans. 

Then, just as young poet was telling him, “You have to shoot for the eyes,” they suddenly heard the sound of actual gunfire. People were screaming and running towards them past the glittering shops from the direction of the shooting. Someone must have opened the cages of the pet store, too because dogs and cats were skittering by their feet and parrots were rocketing past their ears. And people, too. Flying people with bright green plumage zooming by overhead. 

Bobby watched the bird-people in awe, but then the gunfire was growing closer and Pyro grabbed his hand nervously, pulling him into a side corridor. “Come on, Bobby!” he was yelling. “Hurry!” The hand was uncomfortably hot. Pyro pulled open a door at the end of the hall and shouted, “Go in; we’ll be safe!” But just before Bobby ran through the door, he realized there was no room beyond; just a ledge overhanging an endless pit of fire whose red tongues licked up hungrily at him. 

“St. John, no. I don’t want to —” 

“Don’t worry, it’ll be okay!” Pyro grabbed him and together they plunged naked into the inferno. 

It had taken a trip to the kitchen for two bowls of ice cream and, back in his bedroom, 50 push-ups and some quality time with his stash of hand-lotion before he had been able to sleep again. 

Bobby looked out the window at passing stands of trees, at small towns with their car washes and Starbucks. Why Pyro? Why did that boy he had met for 30 minutes two months ago still haunt his dreams? Why did he still look for him at the start of every mutant youth meeting? 

Bobby and Kitty arrived at the Youth Center around 6:15. Upon entering, they found Andi in a corner of the lobby with Raheem’s arms wrapped around her, their heads close together in intimate discussion. Bobby was usually clueless about things romantic, but even he had begun to notice there was something going on between them. _I guess the secret’s out,_ Bobby thought. He motioned to Kitty to follow him as he sauntered up to the couple. 

“Are you two having a policy meeting?” he inquired and watched with amusement as Andi all but flew out of Raheem’s embrace, reflexively straightening her jacket. Raheem laughed and put an arm back around her shoulders. Despite her initial embarrassment, she leaned back into his broad chest and sighed. 

“No, we’re thinking that it’s going to be a crowded meeting. The shooting was big news on every channel today, and I think a lot of the kids are going to be shook up.” She suddenly seemed to register Kitty’s presence. “Oh, hi, I’m Andi. You must be Kitty. Bobby texted me that you’d be coming.” 

They said goodbye to Raheem and headed upstairs. They set up the room with more chairs than usual while Bobby confidently explained a few ground rules to Kitty. 

“Everything that is said here is confidential, obviously; but even so, some of the participants don’t feel comfortable giving their real names. Also, we’ve learned that not everyone wants to say what their power is. Some of them have a lot of shame attached to being a mutant.” 

Andi added, “Sometimes, after a few weeks, the shy ones open up more; but some have had pretty bad experiences. Sometimes we see nothing here that even indicates they are mutants.” 

“Do you think everyone really is?” Kitty asked and Andi and Bobby looked puzzled. “I’m just wondering if you’re worried that someone might be, I don’t know, a spy or a government agent.” 

Bobby shot Andi a worried look. Andi looked thoughtful for a moment before she said, “There’s nothing we can do about that. I doubt our meetings are a secret anymore to anyone worried about the so-called mutant threat.” 

Kitty bit a nail thoughtfully. “So are we exposing the participants to danger by bringing them here?” 

Andi sighed again. “I don’t know. I do know that we’re helping people who are scared and often feel completely isolated. I have to believe that bringing mutants together is better than all of them — all of you — living alone with your secrets.” 

As he had last night, Bobby felt a pit open in his stomach. Was there no place he could feel truly safe? Thank God for the mansion. Then the first arrivals began trickling in and he had to put on his professional face and forget his fears. 

The meeting was even more crowded than they had expected and Kitty went with Tonio to get more chairs. The air was tense and before the meeting even got underway, spontaneous group discussions had begun about the murdered mutant boy. 

As the meeting progressed, Bobby and Andi heard terrible stories about encounters with police and security guards, and they heard the group’s reaction to the anti-mutant rhetoric ramping up in the media. Even Derek, the defiantly open red-faced boy had been too intimidated to leave his apartment until it was time to come down to the Center. His gills twitched nervously. 

“It’ll all quiet down again in a week,” said one girl hopefully. She seemed to be comforting herself by stroking a small ball of blue light that sat just above her right hand. “We just have to keep a low profile until then.” 

“But it’s not going to get better, Stella!” Derek retorted with annoyance. “If no one jumps on the cops who did this, it’ll send a message to every security jerk in America that they can get away with plugging muties!” 

“Derek,” Bobby interjected. “We’ve discussed that that word hurts a lot of us. But your point is valid. Someone needs to send a message out to the police that they can’t get away with this.” He was tempted to mention Xavier’s upcoming press release, but wasn’t sure he was supposed to. 

The room erupted into a stream of skeptical, furious babbling. It was clear that none of them felt safe anymore. Not in their cities, not in their schools, not at home in many cases. 

Lynn and her twin of negative energy spoke up. As the summer had progressed, they had begun speaking in an eerily beautiful double voice. “Andi, what are we supposed to do if we’re attacked, or if we think that we’re in danger? Do we call the cops or not?” 

“Do we use our powers to defend ourselves?” asked a boy with the furry, clawed hands of a werewolf. 

A goth girl Bobby hadn’t seen before said, “I read about something on the GenePool the other day.” She was talking about a small but growing mutant chatroom that had recently appeared online. “Someone said there’s this really powerful old mutant — like one who could tear down a building with a wave of his hand — and he’s threatening war if any more mutants are killed.” 

The room again became a sea of amazed voices, the lights flickering and coloring, a strange siren-like wail modulating in the background. 

Bobby held up his hand and called out loudly over the noise, “Everyone, please! Quiet down.” The room fell relatively silent and Bobby felt a small swell of pride when he saw Kitty looking impressed. “I won’t pretend I’m not shaken up by what happened yesterday. Wow, I can’t go five minutes without seeing the whole scene in my head again. But I think Stella has a point; things will calm down in a couple of days. That doesn’t mean we just shut up and sit on our thumbs. I know Charles Xavier and others are already formulating a response.” He had said that without really thinking about it — but if it was going to be a public release anyway… 

A few in the room nodded at this; others looked doubtful as Bobby continued. “Tomorrow, Hank McCoy of the State Department will be talking to the Governor of California, and I think it might help a lot. I don’t know anything about this building-wrecking mutant you heard about, but if he even exists, he would just make things worse for us. We have to trust Xavier and McCoy and those who are challenging the system legally.” 

“Yeah, trust the system,” Derek responded sarcastically, his eyes burning into Bobby’s. “That’s fine until the next one of us is shot down. What about Lynn’s question? Who do we turn to when we’re in trouble? There’s no one who gives a shit and you know it.” 

Bobby looked back at him, unsure. Everyone in the room seemed to be waiting for his response. Now there was real silence — a deep void of longing. 

“I give a shit, Derek,” he said finally. He got up and moved to the old blackboard at the back of the room, hunting around until he found a sliver of chalk. “Does everyone have something to write with? Borrow from your neighbor if you need to. Here, I want you to write down this number.” He wrote the mansion’s phone number on the board. “If you’re in danger, you call and I’ll do what I can to help.” 

He turned back to the group. Kitty and Andi both looked shocked, and Andi was shaking her head and mouthing ‘No.’ 

Bobby ignored her. “If I’m not there, you ask for a guy named Scott. We won’t let you down.” 

The meeting closed down in a calmer mood than it had begun. Bobby watched kids hugging and programming each other’s phone numbers into their cells. He felt hopeful seeing community happening. _That’s how we’ll make it through this bad time,_ he thought. 

After the meeting, they stacked the chairs in silence. Bobby could see from the set of Andi’s mouth and way she banged the chairs into place that she was pissed off. Kitty, too seemed put out, and though he knew what they were going to say, he didn’t really want to hear it. Finally, after they had pushed the towers of chairs into the corner of the room, Andi said, a little out of breath, “That was the wrong thing to do, Bobby. You can’t just open your whole life to people’s problems. They’ll eat you up if you don’t set limits.” 

Bobby took a deep, sibilant breath and stared at her, his jaw working but no words finding their way out. 

Andi’s continued, trying to reign in some of her frustration. “Look, I know you were trying to do the right thing, but if you really want to become a social worker, you’ll have to learn to draw a clear line between yourself and your clients. The world is too screwed up for you to fix all alone, and if you try, you’ll just burn yourself out.” 

Bobby’s voice was tight, as guilt and indignation warred in him. “I didn’t plan to give them the phone number, okay? But then it seemed like I had to. Like it was the right thing to do.” 

From behind him, Kitty suddenly called out angrily. “But you can’t just give everyone access to the Mansion, Bobby. What were you thinking? It’s supposed to be a secret sanctuary!” 

He spun around like he was powered by one of Ororo’s whirlwinds, and his eyes blazed like Scott’s red-hot beams. “We’re supposed to help mutants, Kitty! Isn’t that the whole fucking point?! Is there something else we’re supposed to have learned from Pasadena, or am I crazy?” Kitty gasped and took a step backwards, but Bobby couldn’t stop. “You show up out of nowhere 24 hours ago, and suddenly you’re speaking for the school! Who do you think you are?! I’ve been there all summer! I’m the one who —” 

But then his jaw shut with a click. His furious features turned red he and stormed out of the room. 

Ten minutes later, they found him in the lobby, sulking on a couch, his arms folded across his chest. Andi came and sat down beside him, but Kitty hung back by the stairs. He couldn’t look either of them in the eye. 

“I’m sorry if I was harsh with you, Bobby,” Andi said quietly. “It was a really difficult session today, and you were so supportive and helpful. I just want you to be careful.” 

Bobby’s voice was gruff and choked. “I am careful. But I won’t sit by and see more of us getting shot.” 

“I understand. Listen, Bobby, you’re going to have to tell Charles that you gave out the number. He’ll need to implement a plan in case any of the kids do phone.” 

Bobby’s clenched expression let go and panic crossed his face. For some reason, this hadn’t really occurred to him. Raheem came out of his office and Andi rose to meet him. Reluctantly, Bobby turned his head to find Kitty. He expected her to be looking hurt and angry, but she seemed as nervous as he was. She cautiously approached him and sat at the far end of the couch. 

“You still mad at me?” she asked quietly, genuinely concerned. 

“No, you were right. I totally breached the school’s security. The Professor and Scott are going to kill me. Shit! I didn’t check for messages. Hold on.” He stretched his legs out straight and arched his back so he could pry his phone from his pocket. He beeped it into life, pushed several buttons and listened, his brows twitching in agitation. “Scott brought the Professor into Manhattan for some meeting with the media. X is staying in town tonight and Scott’s going to pick us up…” He checked his watch. “…in about an hour.” 

“What’ll we do till then?” 

“The Youth Center closes in five minutes so we can’t stay here. Hey, you hungry? There’s a coffee place down the block that makes this amazing pecan pie.” 

“Chocolate pecan?” she asked, as if the coming of a new age of global peace and understanding was at hand. 

“I think they do, in fact, have such a variety of pie, Ms. Pryde,” he replied with the first real smile he had managed in hours. 

“Show me!” she commanded. 

They found Andi in Raheem’s office and said goodnight. Bobby made a point of hugging her so she’d know he wasn’t still angry. 

Half an hour later, he and Kitty were chasing the last crumbs of pie around their plates with their forks in the happy hubbub of the coffee house and Bobby felt some semblance of peace returning. He caught Kitty watching him with a furrowed brow. 

“What,” he inquired with feigned vanity. “Is it that stupid pimple on my nose?” 

“No, although it has been grossing me out for _hours_. No, I wanted to apologize for yelling at you. I had no right at all to act like such an imperial princess. You did what you thought was right. I think the school is going to have to find a way to help out mutants in trouble. We can’t just leave them out there while we’re hiding in our little castle.” 

Bobby looked at her with gratitude. “I’m still not looking forward to telling Xavier and Scott. Shit, don’t you sometimes wish you could just hide in the background forever?” _No,_ he thought. _She probably never wished that._

“Bobby, what did Andi mean about you becoming a social worker?” 

He looked at her, assessing how much to tell. He began quietly, as if afraid to say the words out loud. “I’ve been thinking — really thinking for about a month now — maybe it’s what I want to do.” Bobby’s excitement mounted as he continued. “I got the idea participating in the youth group. I was really shy at first, but then it got easier, you know, to talk to the kids, to say the right thing. Andi thinks I’d be really good, so I asked Raheem and he told me what schools I should go for and everything.” 

“Bobby, you can’t be a social worker,” she said, as if he were proposing bungee jumping from the moon. 

“What? Why not?” 

“X will never go for it. It’s not what he has planned for us.” 

“What are you talking about?” Bobby asked, his voice rising again. “I can become anything I want!” 

“No, you can’t!” she shot back as if he were missing the obvious. “We’re the best of the young mutants, Bobby. Our powers put us all in Class 4 or at least high Class 3. And not only that, we’re top students. Why do you think they picked us for the first year of the school? They’re grooming us to be professionals: important doctors, lawmakers, business leaders, senior research scientists.” 

“But… why? I thought the Professor just wanted to help mutants.” Bobby felt like he had missed a memo again and Kitty Pryde — just arrived — was once again ahead of the curve. 

She rolled her eyes. “He does! He wants us to be examples for the world of what mutant-kind can be! He wants us to change public opinion through our influence and example. Look at the facts, Bobby. You told me yourself; it’s not just a school: there are special defenses, secret labs. X is working with people in government and the media. I’m still confused about all the paramilitary training, but this is _big!_ ” 

“‘Big’ like bad?” 

“No, ‘big’ like awesome! Our school is ground zero in the fight for mutant rights! Xavier is clearly the one calling the shots. Even to the government!” 

“But what can he do?” 

“With connections? Everything!” Her eyes shone with excitement. “He’s like the mutant Martin Luther King! And we’re right in the middle of it all!” 

Bobby stared at her, half furious, half thrilled. “How do you know all this? Why did the Professor tell you and not me?” 

She rolled her eyes again, a habit he might grow to hate. “I don’t know. People tell me stuff; they always have. But he didn’t actually spell it out. I got it partly from what he said and partly from reading the signs. I’ve met people like X. My parents have a lot of friends in NGOs and the UN and stuff. Foundation people who want to change the world. I know that eager look. I can smell the subtext.” 

“So why can’t I be a social worker? I want to help mutants, too!” To his embarrassment, this came out as a whine. 

“Bobby,” she said, either supportive or patronizing, he wasn’t sure. “There’s nothing wrong with being a social worker. But it’s not — you know — as _sexy_ as policy advisor to the President.” 

Bobby felt itchy with confusion. He tapped his fork, he dropped it on his plate. He ran fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “It all sounds like a stupid conspiracy movie! Like we’re all just pawns in some game, Kitty.” His eyes widened. “Oh, shit! That’s why X wasn’t interested in any of the kids from the youth group! Every week I would tell him about someone, thinking he’d be glad to help another mutant. But he was always non-committal — bored even. But now I get it. They’re not prime candidates for his _big plan_. Not _elite_. This is a nightmare!” 

“Okay, get a grip, Mr. Drama.” Kitty said a bit harshly. “Xavier is doing this to help mutants.” She suddenly realized her voice was too loud. She looked around the coffee shop, but no one seemed to have noticed them at all. She continued more quietly. “And he thinks this is the best way to do it.” 

“But… it’s so creepy,” he whispered back. 

“Doesn’t it at least make you feel good that you are one of his chosen few?” 

“That makes no sense, frankly. I understand why he would pick you, but I’m just —” 

“Don’t even start, Bobby Drake! You are awesome. You totally deserve to be one of ‘Xavier’s Saviors’.” 

Bobby laughed at the name despite himself. “No, that’s too religious. How about ‘Charlie’s Angels!’” 

A nasty smile bloomed on her lips. “That’s been done. ‘Xavi’s Navy!’” she tried. 

“No,” he breathed, his eyes widening. “How about ‘The X-Men’?!” 

“Ooh! Sexy! Also sexist, but definitely sexy.” 

He suddenly looked serious again. “I don’t like this. I feel used.” 

She put a hand on his. “I know. But I think we’re at least being used for something good.” 

“I hope so, Kitty.” He looked at the time on his cell phone. “Hey, we should be in front of the Youth Center in, like, five.” 

They paid for their pie and headed up the block in silence, lost in their respective thoughts. At one point, Kitty slipped her hand into Bobby’s and he took it without a word. Bobby wondered what he had gotten himself into. What were Xavier’s plans for him? Were the others all in on it? Was Scott? Was he trapped in a cult? Maybe they’d all end up in jail! Or maybe they would be heroes. He looked over at the girl beside him. She was smart and clearly not as naive as he was about the ways of the world. If she was willing to follow where Xavier led, maybe it would be okay. 

They arrived at the steps of the Center and sat down. They were still holding hands, and Bobby was still looking at Kitty — at her thick brown hair blowing in the evening breeze, at the skin of her neck as it rose from her t-shirt. She turned and met his eyes, and he felt a kind of wave of energy move through him that made the world sway. 

She leaned in to him, raising her lips to his and closing her eyes. He blinked dumbly for a minute and then completed the circuit with his own lips. The kiss was just the barest touch for a moment, and then the wave picked up speed, moving through his body and lighting it up. He felt her lips open and her tongue touch his. He opened up his mouth in response and pressed his head into hers, his tongue moving urgently. 

She giggled and took his head in her hands, pulling away a few inches. “Gently, Bobby, take your time.” And she reunited them. He felt like a dork for a second, but then thought, _Idiot, you’re kissing her, just do it!_ His dick hardened and his mind swirled. A car pulled up by the curb and the horn honked. They turned and saw Scott behind the wheel of the Professor’s Mercedes. Bobby panicked, pulling himself upright and straightening his shirt reflexively. Kitty, on the other hand, seemed completely nonplussed. She waved and stood, tossing her hair as she walked to the car, leaving him sitting foolishly and blinking in confusion, a deep blush coloring his face. 

Kitty hopped into the backseat as Scott stepped out of his door, stretching his arms and breathing the sweet late-summer air. He looked up at Bobby and a grin stretched his features. He waggled his eyebrows like a bad comic and said, “You coming, big guy?” 

Bobby rose, surreptitiously adjusting his bone, and walked quickly over to the passenger door. He climbed in, staring straight ahead, saying nothing as Scott got back behind the wheel and pulled out into traffic. 

“You kids having a good night?” Scott asked through his grin. 

“Just fine, thank you, Mr. Summers,” Kitty replied primly. “This is my favorite time of year.” 

Bobby said nothing and looked at no one, just stared out his window. He had a sudden vertiginous feeling that he was a stranger in his own life. How had this happened? How had he woken up a mutant? How had he come to a school which was more than a school? Who controlled his destiny? Then the memory of the kiss awoke again on his lips and tongue. He turned suddenly to look back at Kitty who was smiling at him with disarming confidence. He smiled shyly back and then looked again out the window as Scott began whistling tunelessly. 

They crossed the bridge out of Manhattan. 


	9. Like a Wave

A kiss closed the gap between Scott and Jean in the half-awake hour when dreams smolder on the wet ground of waking. The alarm, having roused them at a merciless 5:55 a.m., had been silenced and Scott was fighting the sharp jabs of duty that were prompting him to jump immediately from his bed; but that would mean spoiling the gentle magic in the brush of their lips. It was a teasing, sliding sort of kiss. Scott was too self-conscious about his morning breath to let his tongue become involved, but there was something intoxicating about the soft caresses — as if he were growing high on the fumes of a thousand open wine bottles whose contents he was forbidden to actually taste. 

A long time ago, a kiss had been the first step in their transition from mere friends and fellow students to the realm of the intimate. Now kisses were just one of many paths to deep communication. From casual touch, to intellectual intercourse, to physical passion, to the otherworldly intimacy of telepathy, they were attuned to each others’ moods and humors in ways Scott had never thought possible with a woman. 

He felt Jean’s arousal both through the movement of her body against his and through the little flashes of telepathic flotsam that erupted in his head. Not words and not pictures — they were almost like memories of sensation, but sensation experienced through someone else’s senses. When he received these images of unrestrained pleasure from his lover, he saw the colors that had been denied him since he had been compelled to forever wear ruby-quartz glasses that rendered the world monochrome, infernal. 

Her arousal had awakened his own, and he further fueled the cycle by stroking her naked back, tickling the flesh at the base of her spine in the way he knew made her open with desire. Her hands in return, ran down the trail of hair from the top of his belly, stopping teasingly short of the erection that was struggling for space between them. 

But then Scott heard movement outside their door: Margit on her way to the kitchen. And with this first confirmation of the day’s schedule, the rest of it began forming as spreadsheets before his eyes, pushing out the telepathic splendor of Jean’s arousal. With the spreadsheets came the thousand worries that cut through the fragile threads of their passion. Two weeks ago, the worries were still about curriculum, liability issues, curfews; but this week, everything had gotten much more complicated. 

“Dammit, Scott,” she groaned. “Stay with me; we have time!” But he rolled onto his back, his hand still absently stroking her flank. 

“Three more mutants dead yesterday, Jean,” he said, more resigned than enraged. 

“And two humans,” she responded in tragic echo. They lay in silence a moment, thinking of the high-speed police chase in Tennessee that had ended in a fiery crash and more police denials of wrongdoing. And of the previous day’s retaliation murders in Iowa: two dead policemen, their internal organs melted, their skin turned purple; words crudely scrawled on the wall above them: ‘FOR PASSADEENA!’ 

“Is this just a blip or are we watching the beginning of a war? And why is this happening just before we start classes?” Scott muttered. “It’s like a bad omen.” 

“I don’t believe in omens,” Jean answered grimly. She rolled over and stroked his hair. “And neither do you.” 

“Well, obviously… but it just feels like the deck is stacked against us or something. I tell you, I was almost ready to expel Bobby for that stunt of his at the youth group; but now I think he was right to give out the mansion’s phone number. If no one else is going to respond when mutants are targeted, we’re going to have to. Frankly, I’m itching for that first call from a young mutant in trouble. I want to be there when some punk thinks he can take one of us out with impunity.” 

Jean kissed his neck and spoke quietly beside his ear. “Most mornings I wake up thinking we’ve bitten off way more than we can chew. I’m at a critical point in my research and I have papers due. We’ll be teaching 12 live-in students, and now it looks like we’ll be taking off to save mutants in trouble in our spare time. I don’t know how you imagine this working, Scott.” 

“There’s no choice, Jean; we’ll have to make it work. And we’ll be training the first class really hard so they’ll be ready to help with the fight when they graduate.” 

She rolled away from him and spoke to the ceiling. “I thought you were the one who wanted to protect them from all that; wanted them to stay kids.” 

Scott felt the surge of anger that always came when he was caught in his own hypocrisy. He didn’t want to debate the point and so abruptly changed the topic. “Have you caught Kitty and Bobby yet?” 

Despite herself, Jean smiled. “Once. They were making out in the network room. I excused myself quickly.” 

He rolled towards her and propped himself up on his elbows, beginning to plant tiny kisses on her face and neck. “Heh, I knew my man Drake had the moves.” 

“I don’t know… Maybe they’re moving too fast.” 

“Forget it! Bobby’s a ladies’ man just like me. Don’t they remind you of us?” 

She seemed like she wanted to say something, but instead sighed contentedly as his kisses moved lower. “As I recall, we danced around each other for months before either of us made a move.” 

Her hands wrapped around his muscular back as he spoke almost into her right nipple, “But you were an older, experienced woman. Dangerous territory.” 

“And you were a younger man.” Her breath caught as his tongue circled the nipple. “Mmm, though you were pretty experienced for your age, if I remember correctly.” She arched her back like a cat as he climbed on top of her. Teasingly, a little breathless, she murmured, “Don’t we have to get up and start the day, Professor Summers?” The colors were shining in his head again, blinding him to any world but theirs. 

His hand moved between her legs. “We have time, Professor Grey. We have some time. 

 

*** 

 

Mike emerged from the guidance counselor’s office at 9:30 a.m. He had been anticipating the meeting with equal measures of gloom and excitement for a week, and now it was all over in just 15 pointless minutes. He wondered what he would do for the rest of the day. Time was precious in the last week of vacation. 

Without a clear destination in mind, he dawdled in the waiting room, leafing absently through college brochures. Suddenly the door flew open with a bit more force than was called for, and in strode the girl from the mall with the singular name: Jubilee. 

His mouth dropped open as he took her in. She was even sexier than he remembered, her black hair now permed to a shiny kink and streaked with red. She wore tight black jeans and a canary yellow t-shirt that gapped just above them revealing the slimmest, most maddening sliver of skin. Her lips shone like a river that had forgotten to give back last night’s moonlight. He felt a desperate need to kiss them. 

She smiled as if she had caught him at something dirty and said, “It’s you. This day may not suck completely after all.” 

With all his years of education, his experience as a leader, and his widely acknowledged charm, he managed a choked, “Hi.” 

“Hi yourself, Mike,” she returned, satisfied at her effect. “You’re not going anywhere in a hurry are you?” 

“No, Jubilee. As a matter of fact,” he said, trying unsuccessfully for cool, “I’m, uh, not.” 

“Good. I want you to show me all the places wild kids like us get in trouble around here.” She smiled at her wit, holding his eyes like a crocodile wrestler. “I’ll try to finish with the dork session as quick as I can. Where do we meet?” 

He grinned back, unable to hide his gratitude. “Parking lot entrance. Take a right out that door and all the way to the end.” 

The guidance counselor opened his office door, reading from an overflowing manila folder in which he was spotting details that seemed to worry him. He looked up. “Jubilation Lee?” 

“That’s me.” She elbowed Mike playfully as she passed him. “See you soon.” 

When Jubilee emerged into the sunlight 30 minutes later, Mike was sitting on a low, tag-spattered concrete wall that made up one end the parking lot. His eyes were closed as the late summer sun warmed his face. He was imagining kissing the Chinese girl’s shining lips. He seemed the picture of smiling serenity when she called his name, but his heart started beating faster. 

He reached a hand down and helped her scramble up beside him. She sat cross-legged, reaching into her bag to grab a cigarette which she lit and sucked back with exaggerated relief. She gestured at him with the pack but he shook his head. She closed her eyes and smoked, starting to sway to an inner music. They sat in silence and he watched her with the same addictive pleasure she seemed to be taking in her cigarette. “What was your meeting about?” he asked after a minute. 

“Just administrative bullshit. My marks from last year were kind of terrifying, so he wanted to know what the school could do to help me ‘make the adjustment’.” She sneered a bit and laughed. “I swear it sounded like a threat.” 

“What did you tell him?” Mike asked. 

“I said I was fine. If I want to do well at school — and I actually do this year — then I’ll do well without their ‘help.’ Last year was different time, a different state — a different state of mind.” 

“You were living with your parents in California?” 

“Nope. Another aunt and uncle. But I was, um, what’s the word? ‘A handful.’ And so they shipped me off to Boston to live with Auntie Bao. Heh, because she supposedly knows how to lay down the law.” She smirked at Mike, as if to say that there was no law in her town but her own. 

He decided it was time to be more daring: “Your parents?” 

“Dead.” She threw it down like a challenge, watching him carefully, daring him to flinch. “Dead and dead,” she added for emphasis, tossing her half cigarette into the parking lot. 

Mike felt something move in his heart but he didn’t back down or apologize. “How long?” 

“Almost three years now.” She held the stare and he held it back. She seemed to relax a bit. “And that is all I’m going to tell you now, Mike Whoever.” 

“Haddad.” 

“And, Mike Haddad, why were _you_ in the guidance office of abandon-all-hope three days before school starts?” 

“I wanted to find out if the school had any plans to offer special support for mutant students.” 

She choked on her spit and stared at him like he had just confessed to being a serial killer. Mike felt his confidence slip a bit. Was he fucking things up with her? Was she an anti-mutant bigot? Maybe he could help enlighten her. After he kissed her. He pressed on. “When he said ‘nothing’ I told him they should start. I said it’s the school’s responsibility to make a safe environment for all its students and to support them.” 

She seemed to relax a bit and gave one of her hard-slap laughs. “Hah! I bet he started shuffling papers and checking his watch. That’s what he does when he wishes you didn’t exist to complicate his life.” 

Mike smiled. “Yeah, he did.” 

“Jerk.” Jubilee then gave him a serious appraising look. “I don’t get you. Are you a mutant?” 

Mike was somehow surprised at the question. “No,” he told her. 

If anything, her eyes grew even harder and more challenging. “Are you a mutant?” she repeated. 

“No,” he insisted. “I just think —” 

And a third time, almost angrily: “Are you a mutant?!” 

He caught his breath and released it slowly. “No. No, I’m not, Jubilee. I just know what’s going on and I don’t like it. I want to do something right.” 

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “You should be careful, Mike Haddad. People are fucking assholes and they love finding a reason to shit on someone.” 

He heard the pain in the tough girl’s voice. He looked at the unnamable color of her skin; not white, certainly not yellow, not olive like his. He watched the perfect curves of her breasts as they rose and fell with her breath. The desire to kiss her was unbearable. 

She turned to him, and he felt like she could hear his thoughts. He blushed. “You have wheels?” she asked. 

“No. My dad is coming to get me.” As if he were admitting to wetting his bed nightly. 

“Shit.” 

_Dare, Mike, dare._ “Do you want to come back to our house? I have Guitar Hero 2.” 

A dark smile crossed her lips. “I am the goddess of Guitar Hero, Haddad. You are so going down.” 

 

*** 

 

At four that afternoon, Bobby and Kitty were stretched out on his bed perfecting their technique. Under Kitty’s precise tutelage, Bobby had moved in only three days from ardent amateur to a kisser with something that resembled finesse. Kitty had announced just that morning that she was pleased with her pedagogical success. 

As their lips and tongues moved together like well-rehearsed ice dancers, Bobby noted with worry and annoyance that, even as he had learned to control the pressure, moisture and choreography of his mouth, he had felt his interest in the whole process waning. 

Just a minute before, he had caught his mind wandering to the empty bed across the room. Which of the new students would fill it Monday? He had never had a roommate before. He and Ronny had always had their own rooms and Bobby was used to having a space of his own to retreat to. 

When you had a roommate, how much space did you leave each other? Where did you change? Where did you jerk off? Could you even discuss the arrangements without sounding like a — 

Kitty’s lips abruptly pulled away from his. She stared with frustration into his eyes. “Hello? Are you there, Bobby?” 

“What do you mean?” he asked, feeling abruptly guilty. “What kind of a thing is that to ask a guy in the middle of a kiss?” 

She disentangled herself from his arms, arranged her clothes and sat up. “That wasn’t a kiss.” 

“Sure it was!” he returned, his voice rising a bit. “I did the thing with the sliding lips and the one where I took your lower lip gently in my teeth. It was good!” 

“But you weren’t there! No, don’t deny it. You were a million miles away and it’s not the first time. Do you even like kissing me?” 

Bobby thought about it. Yes, he did. It was wonderful to have her warm body there beside him. It made him feel alive and loved. And, yes, her soft lips against his were exciting and sweet… But, after a few minutes it did sometimes get a bit boring. 

Kitty was staring at him looking hurt, waiting for the response that was taking too long. “You’re not even _trying_ anything. I mean, am I ugly or something?” 

Bobby started to panic. The situation was slipping out of control fast. “No! No way, you’re beautiful, Kitty. Of course I like… And what do you mean? You want me to-to grab your breasts or something? I-I respect you! But if you want — “ 

“No! I don’t want you to just grab my tits! I mean, I don’t want you to _ask_ …” she was flustered, furious. “I mean of course you should ask and maybe I won’t let you… but I’m _right here_ and you’re not even _going for it!_ ” 

She stood up, crossed the floor and dropped heavily into his desk chair, running her hands through her hair. 

Bobby pouted. “I don’t know what you want.” 

She shot back, “What do _you_ want?” Something caught her eye on the bulletin board above his desk, peeking out from behind a forest of school schedules and prints of him and Scott laughing over a barbecue. “What is that, anyway?” She reached up and uncovered the piece of paper penned in precisely-wrought green ink. 

“Hey, leave that alone!” Bobby shouted and rose quickly to head her off. But she was already leaning across the desk, reading the words with a furrowed brow. He tried to show he didn’t care as he stood awkwardly beside her, his hands clenching and releasing reflexively at his sides. 

“Who’s St. John Allerdyce?” she asked as she finished the poem, letting the papers fall back over it. 

“No one,” he stammered. “Just this guy from the youth group.” 

“Did I meet him?” 

“No, he only came to the first meeting. I don’t even know him!” 

“He wrote you a poem!” 

“He didn’t write it for _me_ … He just gave it to me. Why are you making a big deal about this?” 

“Maybe if I write you a poem, you’ll want to kiss me!” 

Bobby’s mouth shut like it was spring-loaded. He stared at her, the furious eyes in his red face a little damp. Kitty got up again and dropped onto the empty bed of the unknown roommate while Bobby sank down to take his turn in the desk chair. It was like they were playing a joyless game of musical chairs. He wished Kitty would just get up and leave. 

“Bobby?” she asked quietly behind him. “I’m sorry. I only… want to know if you like me or not.” 

He didn’t turn to her. “I like you. You’re my friend.” 

“I know but…” she sighed. “God, I broke the cardinal rule! Never suggest any guy-guy thing to a guy. It’s like calling a girl ‘fat’.” 

She got up and moved to the door. Bobby turned to her and asked a little desperately, “Kitty where are you going? I’m just sort of distracted! I really like you, we can still —” 

“Bobby, calm down. I’m tired. I’m sorry. I can’t figure out why the network is ignoring the library node and it’s making me crazy.” Hand against the door, she turned to meet his pleading eyes. “You’re my friend, too, okay? It doesn’t matter if we don’t… whatever. It doesn’t matter.” 

“It matters to me!” he pleaded, but she shot him an exasperated look and phased through the door. The ghostly exit was like an erasure; like she had never even been there. He felt utterly alone. 

Looking at his bulletin board, he saw a corner of Pyro’s poem still sticking out. Suddenly angry, he wanted to reach up and tear it to pieces. But his eyes fell on the words, _“…if fire had a friend / If fire found another…”_

He had to leave the incriminating tract there; his only trace of that evening in May. His only trace of that boy. 

 

*** 

 

Mike slid open the patio door and he and Jubilee staggered out into the garden, blinking at the late-afternoon sunshine, minds rocked out in a Guitar Hero haze. Almost tripping on a loose paving stone, she grabbed his bare arm for support. The touch flowed through him like quicksilver. They sat on the grass and she quizzed him about teachers at the school. Multi-tasking: he could keep up his end of the conversation while watching every move she made. He was especially excited by her highly mobile mouth as it spoke, as it popped gum. He kept licking his own lips unconsciously. He was pretty sure she noticed. 

His mother came out of the house in gardening clothes and cut blooms for a bouquet. Clip, clip. Mike and Jubilee lapsed into silence until his mother fished for a compliment on her roses and Jubilee dutifully supplied one. The only sounds were the buzz of bees, the muted roar of a jet overhead and the clip, clip of the pruning shears. Mike and Jubilee were watching each other with increasing intensity. 

His mother vanished inside, pointedly ignoring the electric charge in the air. Over Jubilee’s shoulder, Mike could see his father appear briefly at the kitchen window. He stared between the slats of the blinds and then closed them hurriedly. Mike’s eyes returned to Jubilee’s. 

The kiss seems to push in like a wave from some neighboring street, increasing in volume and strength as it burst from the tree line and crossed the rolling lawn, before it broke and overwhelmed them. They were in each other’s arms, lips and tongues exploring, hands beginning to roam. Mike had never felt this kind of power in his body. He perceived that he was both very alert and close to passing out with excitement. He had her bare upper arms in his hands now and he felt strong, manly. 

Her arms — it must have been his imagination — seemed to be growing warmer. His skin — it must have been his desire — prickled as if electricity were dancing across it. They were lost together in the immensity of their passion. And then Mike saw fireworks. 

 

*** 

 

It was 6:30 in evening, a time caught between the promise of a golden afternoon and the bittersweet twilight of late summer, darkness arriving perceptibly earlier than it had just a week ago. Andi was draped across the bed haphazardly, drenched in sweat, her slender legs intertwined with Raheem’s heavy limbs. The air smelled of guilt and amazement to her. Sweat, hair and the unmistakable odors of living, breathing sex. There was a prissy girl inside her loudly screaming that she should jump up and shower — return everything to clean, odorless control. But there was a stronger part that felt deliciously loose, as if the stays of a corset had popped free and it would take more energy than she had left to fasten them again. 

Everything about the situation was new to her. Raheem was only the second man she had had sex with, and he couldn’t have been more different from Ricky Yamamoto. The son of her father’s colleague at the University, Ricky was almost as short as she was, shy, rather humorless. Their sex was strangely formal, like a meeting over drinks at the student union. They barely looked at each other as they fucked and tried to stop any embarrassing, spontaneous noises issuing forth from their mouths or any other orifice. 

Yes, everything was quite different with Raheem, and the month of sex they’d shared had revealed a hunger in Andi that she’d never expected. Realizing earlier that in the day that they had mutual gaps in their schedules between daytime and evening meetings, they had all but raced back to his apartment where their clothes had not survived a minute before being shed like snake skins. And like snakes, they coiled around each other, their kisses deep and voracious. 

Gratefully, she climbed up on him now, merging their cooling sweat. She ran a hand down his muscular flank and he moaned deeply, pulling her slender form down with his powerful arms so they could kiss again. 

No, he wasn’t Ricky. Ricky’s pale tentative caress didn’t incite her to rebellion and lust the way Raheem’s dark hand did as it slid down her ass and reached between her legs to once again explore her moist labia. A pang of guilt pricked her: was she allowing herself to be aroused by the myth of the hyper-sexualized black man? Was she exploiting him for his race and thus contributing to his oppression? 

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he murmured into her ear, and she wondered if he was also getting off on her ethnicity. Was he, in fact, turned on by conquering the stereotypically ‘demure’ Asian woman and making her his sexual slave? Without even intending to, she slid a hand all the way down his belly, through his tight public hairs and grasped his damp, semi-hard penis. 

_If this is colonization,_ she concluded, _maybe we’ve been giving it a bad rap._

They kissed again and he rolled over on top of her. Were they going to fuck again? she wondered. It wouldn’t be bad thing. But in the next moment’s hesitation, she could tell they were both thinking of upcoming appointments, of getting dinner beforehand. With a sweet ache, she enjoyed the last touches of his soft, thick lips on hers. 

“Hey,” he murmured, looking down at her from inches away. She smiled but then she could see something was troubling him. 

“What?” she caressed his back to let him know she was there for him. 

“I have something to tell you.” He rolled off her and she pulled the sheet up over her legs, feeling a sudden chill in his absence. 

“It’s about the mutant youth group,” he began reluctantly and the chill went deeper through her. “The board just told me: they don’t want… they won’t allow the meetings to continue.” 

All at once, Andi felt terribly, terribly exposed. She pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts and looked away from the naked man. “What are you…” she began weakly before the anger took root. “When did you find out about this, Raheem?” 

“Today. This morning.” He reached out a hand to touch her face and she jerked her head away. “The deaths this week were too much for them. They’ve been looking the other way all summer, but they’re terrified that the Center might get closed down if there’s trouble.” 

“Why would there be trouble?” she snapped back. 

“If… if someone got hurt at a meeting. And when they heard how many mutants showed up on Tuesday —” 

“You mean ‘how many scared kids,’ Raheem. How many of the Center’s _clients!_ ” 

“Andi, don’t yell at me! I told them they were making a mistake — that this was part of their responsibility, and that —” 

She fixed him with a lethal look. “How did they know the numbers on Tuesday? Did you tell them? Do you report on us every week?” 

“Andi, please!” He reached for her again but she pulled away, climbing out of bed with the sheet wrapped around her. “I have to provide those figures. It was one of the conditions they set when they allowed the meetings in the first place. I have to provide numbers, report any trouble that arises.” 

Holding the sheet around her with one hand, Andi gathered her clothes in methodical fury, searching for the missing bits. “So, you’ve been quietly spying all these months. Where the hell are my —” 

Raheem stood up on the other side of the bed, holding her panties out to her. She reached for them but averted her eyes from his nakedness. Suddenly looking embarrassed himself, he picked up the blanket and it wrapped around his waist. 

Holding the pile of clothes against her chest, she turned to him across the expanse of the bed and said quietly. “And you waited to tell me until after we fucked.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Didn’t want to miss the opportunity.” 

“That is not fair! I knew it would ruin your day. Is it wrong that I wanted to spare you as long as possible?” 

“You don’t give a shit about my feelings; you just wanted to get off! You have no guts, no honor!” This last she said as the ultimate curse. Her lower lip quivering, her eyes full of contempt, she turned and ran for the bathroom. She slammed the door and then fell back against it as her tears came. She imagined the kids from the meeting, the ones who were so obviously worried and also the ones who put on a tough face like Derek. What would they do now? How would they handle this betrayal? 

She jumped at the sound of a large ‘thump’ outside — Raheem punching the wall — accompanied by him shouting, “Fuck!” Despite her anger, she felt sorry for him. She didn’t envy him his job. She thought of him on the other side of the wall and she wanted to go back out; but she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair that he got the full force of her anger now, but she was miserable and he was the only one around. And still, beneath the anger, she could feel her body exulting in the passion it had just experienced. Even with the world falling down around her, with justice smashed liked porcelain doll, she suddenly wanted to kiss him again. She loved kissing him. She could still feel the soreness on her lips where his stubble had scratched. She could still taste his sweat. 

 

*** 

 

Night in the city. The car’s window slid down with a jittering staccato. The man inside was nervous, glancing around for cops, glancing back at the boy to assess his worth. 

“How much?” he asked, sweat glistening on his upper lip. 

_How long has this scene been repeating itself?_ the boy wondered. “Twenty-five for a handjob,” he said aloud. “Forty for head. Fifty for anal.” _Must have been guys pulling up in chariots on the wrong side of town in Ancient Rome._

The sweating man managed a leer, like he wasn’t scared. “Looks like you got a sweet ass, kid.” 

_Boys in those little skirt things, flipping them up to show off their goods._ “Well, buddy, it’s your lucky night; I don’t usually do this.” 

“Right,” with a smirk. “You’re not the only boy on the street, kid.” 

_And the same asshole customers then and now._ “Yeah, but I’m the prettiest.” 

The man swallowed visibly. “Yeah.” 

“So… do you need to hear the menu again?” _If you were lucky he was a rich senator who would keep you, dress you in gold; adopt you maybe._

_Unlucky, they’d find you floating in the Tiber._

“No, I got it!” Wanting to finish the negotiations, get somewhere safe. “Get in.” Breath sour with fear and whiskey. 

“And buddy,” John said as he swung fluidly into the passenger seat, his drop-dead-sexy smile cruel as a knife. “I don’t kiss.” 


	10. Shivering with Anticipation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of my readers who only know the X-Men movies as their source material may not have gotten a joke in Chapter 9. Jubilee is a character who appeared in X-Men comics (the so-called “616” universe) and in the first X-Men animated series. She appears as a background character in the first two movies in her trademark yellow jacket but is never given a moment to shine. Her power involves creating energy releases that sometimes resemble fireworks, hence the in-joke about Mike seeing fireworks when they first kiss. So, yeah, she's a mutant in case you missed it. In this issue, I feature many other comicverse characters, especially from the series “The New Mutants”. Just to make things more complex, I have added a character from the “X-Men:Evolution” animated series. He shows up towards the end. You'll know him when you feel him.

_**GenePool welcomes thunderstuck at 4:49 a.m._   
_knifeinthehead89 >MUTANT AND HER PARENTS BURNED OUT OF THEIR HOME IN KANSAS _  
K _nifeinthehead89 >SOMANTO INC. INITIATES ROUST OF MUTANT EMPLOYEES, THREATENS TO SUE NEW EMPLOYEES FOR NON-DISCLOSURE OF MUTANT STATUS_   
_**GenePool welcomes whatsthebuzz at 4:52 a.m._   
_whatsthebuzz >hi! I’m new_   
_refleXgene >Hey! Hi._   
_knifeinthehead89 >MUTANT TEEN FOUND HALF-STARVED, LOCKED IN PARENT’S BASEMENT FOR 6 MONTHS_   
_whatsthebuzz >oh that’s terriblle. did the police help?_   
_refleXgene >ignore him, buzz. He just gives the headlines. he doesn’t chat_   
_whatsthebuzz >oh_   
_refleXgene >how ru?_   
_whatsthebuzz >ok. friend told me about this comm. I think I’m a mutant_   
_thunderstuck >ASP_   
_refleXgene >welcome. Here’s a present for u_   
_whatsthebuzz >whats ASP ?_   
_thunderstuck >age sex power_   
_whatsthebuzz >omg. my desktop pic changed to a tiger!!!!!!!_   
_refleXgene >that’s my present. cool huh?_   
_whatsthebuzz >lol at thunderstruck. 17. female. my power. see I’m not sure…_   
_refleXgene >I can also make new playlists on your iTunes_   
_thunderstuck >you don’t no yr power?_   
_whatsthebuzz >cool, reflexgene. pls don’t. my powr… I think I’m making the horseflies in the barn fly in formation. it’s creepy_   
_thunderstuck >moms here. g2g_   
_**thunderstuck has left GenePool at 5:01 a.m.  
_ _refleXgene >awesome pwr!!_   
_knifeinthehead89 >FOUR MUTANT YOUTH ARRESTED IN TEXAS DENIED LEGAL REPRESENTATION_

  

*** 

 

“Young man… Bobby is it?” 

“Yes, Mr. Jones. Bobby Drake.” 

“Which way to Hayward’s room again?” 

“Take a right at the top of the stairs, sir, third door on the left. Do you need help carrying that?” 

Bobby was too busy to be nervous, too excited to stop smiling. He had drunk two coffees at breakfast and was scarfing muffins from the refreshments table on the front lawn every time he passed. Now he was a buzzy, bouncing ball of bonhomie as students and their families arrived for the first day of school. 

“Bobby! Ororo needs you to copy five more field trip waivers.” 

“I’m on it, Scott!” 

The itinerary called for arrivals between 9:00 and 11:00 followed by an assembly at 11:15. Ororo was posted at a registration desk at the base of the front steps where she signed students in, handed them their orientation packages and then passed them off to Bobby and Kitty. The two of them were in charge of showing students their rooms and conducting tours every time they had a small group together. They also found themselves answering an endless series of queries about life in the mutant school. 

“Can the teachers all read minds, Bobby?” 

“Not all. Terry. Just half of them.” 

“I’ll never think again.” 

The parents, meanwhile, were directed to the refreshments table in the garden where they sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice, nibbled at Margit’s homemade croissants, and chatted amongst themselves. Scott, Professor Xavier and Hank McCoy (up for the day from Washington) moved among the parents, chatting and acting as social glue. Bobby thought Scott looked like he was not enjoying this role. The colorful chaos was further enriched by various siblings, such as Peter’s sister Illyana, tagging along after their mutant family members. 

Jean had left early for an airport run and was now pulling into the driveway with a fully loaded car: Sam Guthrie, making his first trip away from his rural Kentucky home, Neal Shaara who had just flown in from Calcutta, and Roberto DaCosta, the powerful young mutant whom the Professor had discovered in Brazil. As she stepped out of the car with the students, Bobby thought her smile seemed a bit forced. 

He focused his mind and telepathically called to her, _*Rough drive?*_ Bobby was proud of his ability to ‘send’ to telepaths. The Professor said he had a knack for it. In fact, his problem was _not_ broadcasting his thoughts when he didn’t want them heard. That was worrisome. 

_*Bad traffic and worse communication,*_ she sent back. _*Roberto’s English only exists on paper — he can’t actually put a spoken sentence together. And Neal and Sam don’t understand a word of each other’s accents. Maybe you could come over and be really cheerful or something.*_

“Hi, I’m Bobby! Welcome to Westchester!” 

He was helping them with their bags and doing what he could to herd them over to Ororo when another car pulled in. Just as Bobby was wondering where Kitty was (because he sure as hell wasn’t going to greet everyone himself), her voice rang out from the front door of the mansion. 

“Doug!” She came running down to greet the skinny, blond 14-year-old who was climbing excitedly out of the back seat, his eyes taking in everything. Bobby realized this was the math genius Kitty had adopted as an online little brother at the Professor’s urging. They started gabbing immediately and she quickly hauled him off to introduce him around and check out his room. Doug’s parents, the Ramseys were left to fend for themselves and Scott, noticing this, marched over to greet them. 

Ten minutes later, Bobby’s trio of boys was up in the dorms unpacking. He promised a tour a little later, saying he had to rush off and do some paperwork for the Professor. He felt a bit bad about lying, but he was suddenly feeling a panic attack coming on. He slipped downstairs and ran out a back door into a quiet, shaded garden area behind the house where he sought out the most remote corner and leaned against an old oak tree. 

‘Panic attacks’ were what Jean called them, and he hated the word. It made him feel like a nervous bride in a history movie, hand on her breast, swooning. Still, here was that tight, sweaty feeling in his chest; so he focused on breathing slowly and evenly like Jean had taught him. What was he scared of, anyway? Maybe the panic was because he was supposed to stand up during the assembly and invite his fellow students to join his peer counseling group — as if he was the one who could help them with their problems. Maybe his fear was about Kitty. They hadn’t officially broken up, but then they’d never officially been ‘put-together’ either. The kissing had stopped and now she always kept a bit of distance between them; but they were still friends, he was pretty sure of that. Would she be making jokes about him to the other girls? Tell them how he wasn’t… couldn’t… 

Breathe. Center yourself. 

Now that he was looking at it, the list of fears seemed to be growing. While he was happy to play goodwill ambassador for the day, maybe he was scared that the other students would be smarter than he was, scared that they’d have better control of their sure-to-be cooler powers. There was something more, he realized. Almost every student there was known by their parents to be a mutant. They were loved despite the fact that they burned with the heat of the sun, screamed loud enough to shatter walls, or whatever else was different about them. Bobby felt more like Roberto and Rahne — orphans who had to bear the burden themselves. But it was worse for him! His parents were alive and he could never tell them. They would never accept him the way the Ramseys accepted Doug. Even Peter Rasputin was accepted by his father — an Orthodox priest! 

He heard a scratching sound off to his left and looked over to find that very same Peter Rasputin tucked behind another tree, sketching with charcoal in a large pad of paper. It was an incongruous sight: the huge young man holding the sliver of charcoal with such delicacy, creating a gentle but powerful unicorn on his pad. Peter was like that mythical creature, Bobby realized; shyer than you would guess from his strength and stature. 

“Hey, Peter,” he called out, trying not to startle him. 

Peter looked up and quickly closed his pad. “Hello, Bobby. I was just…” He didn’t continue. 

“I know; it’s kind of overwhelming out front. Hey, is it ‘Peter’ or…? Your dad said something else.” 

“Piotr,” he replied, the word sounding very alien coming from the big guy with the All-American Midwestern accent. “But ‘Peter’ is easier, you know?” He smiled for the first time. 

Bobby grinned back. “Yeah, I think I’ll go with that. Listen, I wonder if you could do me a favor.” This was a trick he had learned from Andi; give the shy ones something to do that would help them open up. 

Peter’s smile faltered. “Sure, if I can. I’m not really…” 

“You play football? You look like you must.” Peter nodded. “Great! See that shed over there? Get a ball from the shelf and go grab the kids who are up in their rooms. You can get a game going on the lower field until it’s time for the assembly. That would really help me out, buddy!” 

Peter headed off on his task while Bobby stayed in the quiet of the garden for another minute. He felt better after the interaction. The mansion was his place and he knew what to do here. He could be a leader just as he had been in the City at the youth group. He wanted to linger more but realized that the all-seeing eye of Scott would be wondering at his absence, and he took off around the house at a run. 

 

*** 

 

As the morning progressed, Scott found himself wishing he were leaping from a burning airplane into a heavily guarded military facility where he would have to get past state-of-the-art killer robots to defuse a bomb that would likely go off and kill him before he was done. That scenario, he felt, would be more suited to his skills than shaking hands with parents and getting a group of over-excited teenagers to follow the day’s schedule. 

He and the Professor, along with Hank, were trying to create an atmosphere of calm professionalism and make sure everybody — especially the parents who had donated money above and beyond tuition — were feeling like they had made the best decision of their lives in sending their children to Xavier’s. 

He didn’t like the whole situation from a security point of view, either. Families had shown up with unexpected guests, and he felt a burning need to keep track of everybody at all times which was clearly impossible. He was especially unhappy to see the Professor so exposed. Of course, if there were a sudden attack from assailants unknown, it would get him out of having to make the opening speech later. 

“I’m just not good at public speaking, Professor,” he had complained the night before. 

“Then it’s time you got used to it, Scott,” Xavier had responded. “Just organize your thoughts in advance and speak from the heart.” 

He just wished the day were already over. 

He was still in conversation with the Ramseys, discussing education theory with the couple (who were both teachers) when he noticed the Rasputins talking earnestly with Terry and Dani’s parents. They seemed to be getting themselves worked up about something and, as their discussion grew more agitated, he overheard the words, “…if it could happen in Pasadena, it could happen here.” 

_*Professor*,_ he called out telepathically and noticed Xavier tilt his head slightly in response without abandoning his conversation with the Jones family. _*You might want to join that group before they get too rattled.*_ He watched Xavier smoothly disengage himself from his conversation and wheel over to comfort the troubled parents. The Joneses wandered off to explore the topiary, and Scott noted the way their strangely detached son came to a halt as if hearing something odd in the wind. Scott thought Jean should test the boy for Asperger’s. More special needs? How would they cope? 

He felt someone come up behind him, and turned to see Roberto DaCosta, dressed in a jacket and tie, shyly approaching. Scott smiled at him. He and Ororo had gone down to meet the boy last year in Rio de Janeiro under somewhat scary circumstances. The boy had needed them, and now they were lucky to have his talents at their school. Roberto was going to be one of Scott’s “sunshine boys” — students who shared his own ability to transform sunlight into powerful force. He would need to work hard with these kids before they could safely use their dangerous powers. 

Scott brought his conversation with the Ramseys to a close and pointed them at the food table. As they moved off, Roberto came forward, shaking Scott’s hand formally. 

“Welcome to America,” he told the handsome, dark-skinned youth. 

“Thank you, Mr. Scott,” he responded awkwardly in his limited English. “It is good to being… being here. Home, yes?” 

“Yes, this is your home now.” Silence descended as they both pondered how to surmount the language barrier. Scott took another security survey of the grounds, noticing that the guests were favoring the croissants over the bagels, noticing that the Professor had got the group of concerned parents smiling again, noticing the Jones kid (what was his name? Hayward?) wandering in a trance towards the basketball court. Continuing his visual reconnaissance, he noted that Rahne was still sitting shyly with Ororo who seemed to have a special affinity with the quiet orphaned girl. Behind them, he spotted Peter emerging from the house with Guthrie, Shaara and a football, followed by Kitty and Doug who were deep in animated conversation. 

“Hey, Doug!” Scott called out, and he and Kitty came over. “How’s your Portuguese? Roberto here is a little stuck for someone to talk to.” 

Doug’s brow furrowed as if he was accessing a database. “I only know 23 words, sir,” he said with great seriousness in a voice that had still not completely dropped into its adolescent range. “But that should be enough.” 

Doug turned to Roberto and stared intensely up into his face. _“Bom dia, Roberto. Como está?”_ he asked, intoning the words without fluency, like he was tourist consulting a phrase book. 

Roberto smiled back at the serious boy with amusement and replied, _“Obrigado, bem.”_

Doug’s head tilted slightly to the side and he blinked twice. _“Diga-me sobre sua família.”_

Roberto looked a little startled at the question, but then began speaking slowly, saying things to Doug that were clearly more complex than basic tourist vocabulary. 

Kitty’s mouth dropped open as she watched Doug nodding and then, bit by bit, interjecting single words and then whole sentences. Within a minute, he and Roberto were conversing fluently and rapidly in Portuguese. Roberto’s body language changed completely, and he became visibly relaxed and excited, finally able to unload the day’s fear and excitement on someone. 

Doug turned to Kitty and said, “I’m going to give him the tour you just gave me, Kitty, if that’s okay.” 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” she responded and the boys moved off, chatting happily. She turned to Scott. “That was pretty impressive.” 

“He’s also written three of four new computer languages,” he told her as he surveyed the grounds again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that chaos was lurking somewhere in the air. 

“Yeah, I know,” Kitty replied. “It’s scary. He says we can rewrite all the systems at the mansion in ways that will make them hundreds of times faster.” 

Scott noted that the football players had chosen a spot on the lawn way down near the base of the drive. Would they even hear anyone call them when it was time for the assembly? He turned back to Kitty. “We’ll all have to help Roberto learn English as soon as he can; otherwise Doug will have a full-time job as his…” Catching a movement over her shoulder, Scott stopped and said, “What is that boy doing?!” 

Kitty spun around and they both watched Hayward Jones standing robotically beside the basketball court. He raised an arm straight ahead of himself, his hand in a claw shape, and rotated the arm as if he were turning a doorknob. A deep, mechanical thrumming sound startled everyone (except the distant, shouting football players) into silence. The basketball court suddenly split at the center line, and the gap began widening. 

“Hey, stop that!” Scott shouted and started sprinting towards Jones who seemed totally focused on his task. Everyone on the lawn turned and then began moving towards the phenomenon, muttering in wonder and surprise. Kids were squeezing forward to see what the open portal would reveal just as Scott reached Jones. He grabbed his shoulders and gave him a small shake, yelling, “Hayward, stop!” Only then did the boy snap out of his trance, seeming surprised to find Scott there at all. The opening court rumbled to a halt. 

He looked around at the group that had gathered and then back at Scott with an annoyed expression. “Call me ‘Jones.’ I _hate_ ‘Hayward’.” 

Scott turned to find the group of kids on their hands and knees, peering down into the darkness between the halves of the basketball court. 

“What do you see?” 

“Something shiny. Big!” 

Scott looked around at the gawking crowd. He breathed in sharply through his nose and then exhaled slowly to quell his anger. _Fucking civilians!_ He stood up tall and shouted out in crisp military fashion, “Attention. This is not a safe area. Please step back from the basketball court!” 

Everybody wordlessly obeyed as if he were dressed like a field commander instead of a tweedy young professor. He marched over to a decorative rock, flipped open a secreted panel in the top, and punched in a sequence on the revealed keypad. The court closed again with a deep rumble and a final ‘whump’. 

Everyone automatically turned back to Scott as if awaiting further orders. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then a football flew in from overhead, startling him and scattering the crowd. Peter Rasputin bounded in after it, almost knocking over the Ramseys in his enthusiasm. 

“Sorry! Sorry, Mr. Summers,” he muttered, gathering up the football and turning back to face Guthrie and Shaara who were waving from the distance. 

“Peter…” Scott began, but the big guy was already running back to his com-patriots, dragging the group’s attention with him. He then caused amazed gasps, shrieks and cheers as his body bloomed sheets of shiny silver metal, transforming him into something out of a Terminator movie. He drop kicked the ball which sailed high up and over the trees that surrounded the front lawn. 

Off in the distance, Sam Guthrie gave an excited ‘whoop’ and began running after it. His body started glowing brightly and, as he leaped into the air, his lower half appeared to burst into flames. He shot skyward like a cannon. The display of powers seemed to be creating a circus mood, and a cheer went up as Guthrie left the ground. Perhaps that was what distracted him because a few seconds later, his trajectory took him into the treetops, and he suddenly spun out of control, losing his propulsive glow and crashing to the ground beyond the trees, out of sight. 

“Dammit,” Scott yelled, losing his cool. “Everybody please stay where you are and students, DO NOT USE YOUR POWERS!”   
  
Then a wolf almost ran him down. 

 

*** 

  

“Mr. Haddad, I’m very disappointed to find you here in my office at all. And especially on the first day of class.” 

This was not Mike’s first visit to the principal’s office at his high school. He had spoken to the man before about organizing school activities, about being the school’s representative at the “Leaders of Tomorrow” conference; but it was the first time he had been there for an alleged violation. Along with his feelings of outrage and shame was another unexpected emotion. It was similar to the feeling he had experienced when he had walked into the building this morning with his shaggy hair hanging down his forehead, wearing black jeans that were a bit torn at the knee, and a t-shirt that said ‘I’m a firecracker. Gotta match?’ Mouths had dropped in disbelief because he was known for his serious, preppy demeanor. 

He looked the principal in the eye and said, “I’m not sure what you wanted to see me about, Mr. Matthews.” Let the principal accuse him; he wasn’t going to make some shamed confession. 

Matthews opened Mike’s student record folder (to let him know that these things would _always_ haunt him) and pulled out a photocopied poster. A fly was buzzing somewhere near the fluorescent bulb as he read it over. He turned it to Mike who didn’t blink or lower his gaze. Perhaps annoyed that his theatrics weren’t working, Matthews turned the flyer back around and read aloud: “‘Mutants are part of our community, too. Make them welcome at this school.’ Are you responsible for this, Michael?” 

_Well_ , Mike thought, _here we go._ “Yes, Mr. Matthews. I put up a few signs around the school today.” 

“Are you aware that all posters, flyers, and any other signage must be approved by the office for posting?” 

“Yessir, I am.” 

“Then why —” 

“Because you would have said no, sir. I asked the guidance office about their plans in case one of our students turned out to be a mutant. They didn’t have any. Then I asked the Vice Principal if I could put something supportive into the orientation newsletter. He forbade it. I asked to speak to you about the issue, and you said there was nothing to discuss.” Mike realized his adrenaline was pumping. He’d have to watch it or he’d go too far. Maybe he already had because Principal Matthews was clenching his jaw and worrying the paper in his hand. 

“So, in other words, you had already received a clear answer from three members of the administration that we were not going to be setting policy on this issue, but you had to go ahead on your own. You do not understand how these things work. When the school district makes a ruling on this problem, we will follow their lead.” He paused, looking again at the flyer with contempt. “Or do you think you’re smarter than us, Haddad?” 

Mike knew how he wanted to answer that, but instead he simply said, “No, sir.” 

“Then why did you take matters in your own hands against our wishes?” 

“Because… because I thought it was the right thing to do, Mr. Matthews.” 

That earned him a red-hot look of fury. “So, you think that our school would be better off with mutants wandering the halls, Michael? Do you have any idea the chaos that would…” He ground to a halt, shaking his head at the boy. “How many?!” 

“Sorry, sir, how many —?” 

“How many posters did you put up?!” 

“About 12.” 

“And was anyone else involved in this activity?” 

“No, sir, just me.” 

Silence fell again. Matthews looked out the window, making Mike sweat it out. He then crumpled the flyer completely and tossed it across the room into his metal garbage can where it fell with a clunk. The fly had moved to the window where it was buzzing emphatically, searching for escape. 

Matthews’ tone became curt and business-like. “I want all the posters down the minute you leave this office. Mr. Haddad, you have always been an exemplary student. I hope this incident is merely a case of late-summer shenanigans, and that you will be ready to be a responsible citizen of this school again beginning now. Do you think you can do that?” 

Hidden behind the desk, Mike’s fists were clenched. “I’m responsible, sir. I’ll always be responsible.” 

“Good. You’re dismissed. But if there is another incident like this, we will not treat it lightly.” 

“Sir, if we could just discuss this —” 

“DISMISSED!” 

Mike controlled his fury until he got outside into the corridor. A couple of students whispered curiously as he emerged from the office, clearly distressed. He wanted to kick something, he wanted to scream. _Goddamn, it wasn’t fair!_ He was the guy who just wanted to get through high school with good grades and go on to med school and lead a simple, successful life. Why was this happening to him? Why was he doing this to himself? 

“Are you responsible for this, Michael Haddad?!” came another furious voice. Heads turned as Jubilee stormed up to him holding one of the posters. She grabbed him by the t-shirt and pulled him around the corner, half-tearing the shirt right off. She pushed him against the wall and held one of the posters up to his face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

“Jubilee, Jesus Christ!” He lowered his voice and hissed at her, “I’m doing this you! For all the mutants!” 

“You are causing trouble is what you’re doing! Look at this!” She pointed at the poster and, with a sinking heart, he saw the amendment made to it with a red Sharpie. A figure with horns and sharp teeth was being hanged from a gallows, spikes in its bleeding side. The word ‘welcome’ was circled in red three times. 

Mike grabbed his poster and stared at it, all but foaming at the mouth. “Fuckers! This is exactly what I’m talking about! This is exactly why we need to speak up about —” 

She grabbed him by his upper arms and let go an electric spark. He cried out and wrenched himself from her grasp; ready to fight, he glared at her but then, to his surprise, he saw that she was crying. Hoarsely, she whispered, “Michael, don’t! Don’t do this! I’m scared. Just… just let it go.” 

He threw his arms around her and pulled her close to him. “Jubilee, I would never let anything happen to you. We have to fight or the hate will get worse!” 

“It doesn’t have to be you, Mike! Let someone else do it! And not here where I have to live!” 

He held her away a bit so he could look her in the eye. “But… but if everyone left it to someone else, nothing would ever get better. You must understand that.” 

She shrieked and pushed him back against the wall, her tear-stained face contorted again in fury. “Fine! Do whatever you like! Get expelled for it, I don’t fucking care! But if that’s what you want, stay away from me, okay?” 

“Jubilee —” 

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” She turned and stormed down the hall, pushing amazed students aside. 

Mike watched her round the corner, feeling helpless, miserable. He looked up and saw Paul Greenstein smirking. “Wow, Haddad. I bet she’s really a sparkplug in bed!” 

 

*** 

 

The assembly was delayed an hour so that Jean could tend to Sam’s arm. Kitty had wasted no time getting all the facts from those that had been on hand, and was now relating the story to a wide-eyed group of kids on the front steps. 

“He was lucky he didn’t land on the rocks, but he broke his arm anyway. Ororo flew out to find him, and Neil and Peter were there a minute later. She called Jean telepathically and they just tried to make him comfortable until she got there. But then it gets _good!_ ” Everyone leaned forward a little. “Rahne comes running out of the trees in her wolf form, and Peter metals up and yells, ‘Stand back! I will protect us!’” She laughed and looked out towards the gazebo where Peter was still talking to Rahne, both having been very embarrassed by the incident. Kitty suddenly felt a stab of guilt for telling tales about them. 

“Well, anyway,” she continued with less enthusiasm, “they were both just trying to help. But it was pretty much a total clusterfu…” Seeing Dani’s seven-year-old brother in her audience, she stopped herself abruptly. “Uh, and the moral of the story is, be careful how you use your powers.” 

_*Or perhaps: ‘don’t judge someone to be an enemy just because they appear different from you’,*_ came the Professor’s distinctive telepathic voice. She blushed and wondered if she were psychically blushing, too. _*Kitty, would you please bring your group to the assembly area; we are ready to begin.*_

They all made their way around the side of the house where folding chairs had been set in neat rows. At the front was a microphone on a stand. Kitty got behind it, flipped a switch and gave a quick, “testing, testing.” She adjusted the treble on the mixer amp before taking her seat in the front row beside Bobby. 

“Clusterfuck,” she enunciated quietly. 

Bobby looked over, startled. “What?” 

“Nothing. Just had to get it out of my system.” She turned around, watching everyone find their seats. She smiled and waved at new acquaintances. Then she spotted someone she had been meaning to talk to. “Hey, you’re Jones?” 

“Yeah,” he answered a bit warily from two rows back, looking at her owlishly through his round glasses. 

“How did you do that thing with the basketball court?” 

“I can sense electrical networks,” he said, as casually as if he were explaining how he tied his shoes, “and I interpolate some of my consciousness into them.” 

Kitty blinked, her mind whirled. “What about computer networks?” she asked excitedly. “Can you sense the pathways?” 

“Of course,” he said, nodding. “It’s all laid out in my head like a map.” 

“Wow. Okay, you and I are definitely going to talk right after the assembly.” She turned back to the front, trying to contain her excitement. “I think this is going to be the best school ever!” She looked around again as if waiting to see what other marvels would unfold. Most of the seats were now full. “Have all the students arrived?” 

“Yeah, all except the Alvers family.” 

“They’re totally late! Did they phone?” 

“Not that I know of. The Professor didn’t seem too surprised.” 

Hank and Ororo joined them in the first row while Scott and the Professor headed for the front, Scott taking his place behind the microphone. 

“Could everyone please be seated?” he said, too close to the microphone, startling audience members and a tree full of sparrows. 

People settled into their places, but then all heads turned as Jean came around the corner supporting Sam Guthrie who had a fresh cast on his arm and was looking distinctly stoned. They took seats at the end of the second row, and Peter got up hurriedly to greet his fallen teammate. 

“Does it hurt, Sam?” he asked with concern. 

Sam giggled and said in an even thicker drawl than before, “Sheeit, no! I feel _awesome_!” 

Bobby leaned over to Kitty and whispered, “Jean’s blocking his pain centers and stimulating his endorphins telepathically! Cool, huh?” 

“Wow,” Kitty responded, and then, with an evil grin added, “Do you think she ever, like, does that for Scott when they…?” 

Bobby coughed out a loud guffaw as Scott began his speech, looking grim as a man on death row. 

“Welcome to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. As most of you know, I’m Scott Summers. Some of your teachers are fine with you calling them by first names, but I prefer to be addressed as Mister Summers. We are at the beginning of an exciting year, and I wish all our students the best of luck. We have high expectations for you, and we expect that through hard work and discipline, you will meet them.” 

Everyone shifted a bit in their seats as if sensing that the morning’s party had abruptly ended. Kitty, who had sat through and given many speeches at her old school was surprised how nervous he seemed. She couldn’t exactly tell through his red glasses, but she had the distinct impression he wasn’t looking at the audience. Sometimes his head would even swing up towards the treetops for a second as if to see if the squirrels were taking it all in. 

“As we saw this morning, having extraordinary powers carries a high degree of risk and responsibility. This brings me to the first rule of the new term: no use of any energy-releasing powers within 500 meters of the mansion. Um, and while I’m thinking of it, you are responsible for carrying your own dishes back to the serving area.” 

Sam started giggling and couldn’t stop despite Jean shushing him several times. 

Scott soldiered on. “There are areas of the mansion where you are forbidden to go without teacher accompaniment. These areas can be _highly dangerous_ and we will deal severely with any attempts to disable the security systems.” 

Parents were whispering among themselves, and Kitty noticed that Xavier was looking a little annoyed. He cleared his throat and said quietly but audibly, “Scott, I believe you were going to just welcome the students. The rules are in their orientation packages.” 

Scott looked a bit lost for a moment before he returned to the microphone. “Yes, right. I did want to say welcome, and I hope everyone has a great year. There’s a lot to learn both academically and in terms of controlling your powers but we teachers are here for you and, um, don’t ever be shy about coming to us with your problems.” Kitty tried mightily to avoid rolling her eyes. “And now, Professor Xavier would like to say a few words.” 

He adjusted the mike stand to a lower level as the Professor wheeled himself forward and looked out with a bright smile on his face. Scott retreated to the front row, scowling, his arms crossed on his chest, shrugging off Hank’s supportive pat on his shoulder. 

Kitty felt herself lean into the Professor’s warm, welcoming smile. She realized that he could win a crowd over without even saying a word. Now _that_ was a skill worth learning. She felt kind of sorry for Scott. 

“This morning,” Xavier began, “is the fulfillment of so many years of dreaming that I can scarcely believe…” He paused, momentarily overcome by emotion. “…scarcely believe it is finally here. Welcome! Welcome all of you to my home. We are living in extraordinary times. When I was a young man, no one had heard of mutants or the X-gene. We now suspect that the emergence of this new human variant might have begun a hundred years ago or more, but it is the sudden flowering of a generation of mutants that has caught the attention of the world. 

“And while the politicians, the newspapers, and the citizens of this nation — indeed this planet — discuss the ramifications of this change, it is you, the students of this institution and their families, who are living the change.” 

Xavier took a minute to gaze silently at the faces before him. Some met his eyes, others turned away or blushed. 

“However, where some see fear, I see beauty, I see hope. During your years at the school, we will discover together just how much mutants can contribute. And I believe that when the world sees that we — like any in the human race — have abilities that can help liberate humankind from strife, it will stop regarding us with fear, and open its arms in acceptance. It will see as I do, that you young people and your brave families offer hope in a time that desperately needs it. Welcome to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. You are my inspiration.” 

Xavier raised his hands and began applauding his audience and they quickly joined in. At a cynical level, Kitty wanted to dismiss it as crowd-pleasing theatrics, but then why was her heart beating faster? Why did she have a tear in her eye? 

The applause died down and Xavier once again spoke. “And now, it’s my pleasure to introduce one of our students who wishes to say a few words to you. Bobby?” Xavier wheeled backwards, and Bobby got up and moved to the front, manhandling the mike stand up to his height with amplified rumblings. 

“Uh, hi. I’m Bobby Drake. I probably met most of you already so, um, ‘Hi!’ First of all, I’d like to say that I’ve been here all summer and helped Scott… I mean Mr. Summers put together a lot of stuff around here. So if you need help finding something or figuring out how something works or where it lives, you can talk to me. 

“But that’s not really what I’m going to talk about. Okay. Bit nervous here. It was only five months ago that my life changed. Up until then I thought I was just a normal screwed up kid with, um, problems at school and the usual crazy parents. Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that parents are crazy. Heh. Anyway, one day, I found out I was… I was a mutant. Yeah, that was kind of surprising. And it was pretty awful because it didn’t seem like I could tell anyone. And all I was hearing about mutants on TV was how they — we — were a threat. 

“So anyway, now I’m here and it’s really great to know that I am accepted and valued by the Professor and everyone at the school. But sometimes, it’s still hard. I still wake up and I think about the secrets of my life. About the way I’ve had to leave my home and my friends, and how I have to hide what I am. And some days it really sucks. That’s why I suggested to the teachers that we have a drop-in discussion group a couple of times a week. Something informal where we can just talk about things that are bugging us, about our lives, about whatever we want. It’s totally voluntary, and no one’s going to give you a grade or anything. It will just be students; no teachers. I’ll be leading the first few groups, but I hope that we’ll all be there for each other. 

“The first group will be tomorrow night at 8 o’clock out at the rotunda, weather permitting and we’ll have another group on Saturday afternoon at four. 

“Okay, um, we’re a bit behind schedule now, so Scott… um, Mister Summers is going to tell everyone where —” 

Bobby’s speech was interrupted by insistent honking from the driveway. Everyone turned their heads, and Scott called out, “Kitty, it’s our latecomers. Would you please go and…” He seemed to turn several verbs over in his head. “…greet them.” 

Kitty got up and headed for the front lawn as Scott returned to the mike to outline the rest of the day’s schedule. As she walked over (because she was not going to _run_ for the sake of rude guests), she felt a knot of frustration growing which she attempted to untangle and understand. Scott’s speech sucked because he didn’t know anything about making people like him. He just knew how he thought things should be and he expected people to feel the same. The Professor, on the other hand, was a genius at inspiring a group. 

But Bobby! He pissed her off. He stood up like some typical high school doofus with no good plan for his speech, apologizing for everything he said. She had offered to coach him, but he said he was fine on his own. Just because they weren’t going out anymore, he had to act like he didn’t even need her. Stupid male pride. And yet everyone listened! When she’d stood up in front of school assemblies and school board meetings, she had carefully assembled a persona of confidence and authority to win their respect. Bobby didn’t seem to need that. Despite his nervousness, he hadn’t been afraid to show himself as imperfect, as scared. That was a kind of bravery she didn’t have, and it made her jealous. 

She came around the corner of the mansion and stopped to take in the scene. A silver BMW gleamed in the bright noon sun. By the passenger door stood an imperious woman with expensively dyed blond hair and an excess of jewelry. She was leaning heavily on the car looking annoyed and bored, tapping lacquered nails on the shiny roof. The driver’s door was open, too, but Kitty could only see the expensive shoes of the man sitting in the seat. He honked again twice. 

“No one’s home,” came a loud, confident voice from the front door of the mansion. Kitty caught her breath as a guy maybe just a bit older than her strode down the steps like he owned the place. His long, striking face was made up of dark eyes, a sexy nose with a seductive bend to it and a strong jaw. His straight, dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he raised a big hand to push it back up. His baggy hip-hop fashions might have passed for “street” if she hadn’t known how expensive those brands were and what kind of exclusive shops carried them. 

The driver stood up. He was middle-aged and heavy-set with an even more extravagant version of the boy’s nose. In a commanding voice with a distinct foreign accent he demanded, “Well, where are they? This is the first day of school! The Alvers family is here!” 

Kitty stepped out into the open and said, “Hi! Everyone’s at the assembly.” They all swung around to look at her, the man with the accent, the furiously bored wife and — oh my god — the son with those dark eyes and that dangerous smile. 

“Hey there, I’m Lance. Lance Alvers,” he said, once again pushing the runaway hairs back into place. 

“Kitty Pryde, hi.” She had already forgotten that his parents were there and that she should greet them personally. Lance sauntered up to her and stopped a little too close, his hands sliding into the pockets of his jeans. “Do people do the whole ‘well, _hello Kitty_ ’ thing to you?” he asked in a voice that challenged and thrilled her. 

She felt the heat of his presence and was afraid she was about to do or say something stupid and hormonal. She stepped back and established a perimeter. “‘Hello Kitty?’ No, not if they want to live.” She smiled back with fake confidence. 

She was awaiting his next parry or thrust in their little fencing match when Mrs. Alvers shook a jeweled arm in the air and hollered, “Hello there! You! How long are we going to be kept waiting?” 

“Mom,” Lance shouted without turning to her, his eyes staying with Kitty, flirting shamelessly. “This isn’t the Plaza. We’re late and you’re making an ass of yourself.” 

This made her absolutely shriek. “Do you have any idea how much your father is paying for this little adventure? The least they can do —” 

“Young woman,” Mr. Alvers cut in, “Go find Professor Xavier and tell him we have arrived and wish to speak to him. 

Kitty broke free of Lance’s magnetic field and put on a diplomat’s face. “The assembly is almost done, and if you just hang tight a couple of minutes —” 

Mrs. Alvers barreled on, “And what about Lance’s bags? Who’s going to take in —” 

“ENOUGH!” Lance shouted, spinning to confront them. Taking a wide-legged stance, he hunched forward as if he were about to lift some great weight. His fists clenched, and he let out a roar that startled Kitty and made his parents go white. The earth suddenly started trembling and then shaking in earnest. Kitty grabbed hold of the railing by the stairs; Lance’s parents dove back into their car and slammed the doors. The minor earthquake came to a halt and Lance turned back to Kitty. “That should shut them up for a minute.” He smiled craftily at her but then he suddenly winced and his hands flew up to his temples. “Shit!” he said through gritted teeth and Kitty forgot her nervousness. 

“Are you okay?” She moved towards him. 

The driver’s window rolled down. “Lance,” came his father’s worried voice. “Is it bad?” His face was a sea of sympathy, though he didn’t step out from the safety of his vehicle. 

Lance threw a hand in the air. “I’m fine,” he shouted, although he was clearly still in pain. “I just need a minute!” They all waited in silence. Kitty felt terribly awkward, not knowing how to help. 

“Young lady,” Mrs. Alvers pleaded, stepping cautiously from the vehicle. “Call someone, he needs help! Tell them it’s Dominic Alvers’ son.” Kitty wondered if she should know the name. 

She turned to Lance, trying to decide the right course of action, but he was straightening up, breathing easier. “No, mom, I’m okay.” 

At that moment the crowd from the assembly starting coming around the corner. The Professor led the way in his motorized wheelchair. Spotting the Alvers family he excused himself to the parents he was conversing with, and pulled up to the driveway. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Alvers. I’m so glad you could finally join us,” he said, with no audible sarcasm, though the word choice seemed loaded to Kitty. “Lance, I certainly _felt_ your arrival a moment ago. Please keep your powers in check for now.” He looked at Lance’s face which was still pale. “Did you have another headache?” 

“Yes,” Lance replied quietly, “but I’m fine now, Professor.” 

“Good. You’ll feel better after you eat, I think.” He turned to smile at the Alvers parents. Dominic Alvers was still looking worriedly at his son, but Mrs. Alvers had again found her imperious demeanor and was glaring at Xavier over the roof of the car. He smiled benignly in return and said, “I believe you wished to discuss some matters with me. Kitty, could you escort Mr.  & Mrs. Alvers to my office in five minutes? Bobby will be here in a moment and he can show Lance to his room.” With that, the Professor turned and moved up the concrete ramp that formed part of the front stairs, joining the stream of people entering the mansion. The Alverses seemed unwilling to join the other parents yet and retreated to their car, waiting to be called. 

Kitty had been watching Lance through this exchange, seeing the color return to his cheeks, seeing the respect with which he viewed the Professor. He turned to her and met her gaze. Their eyes locked with an intensity that made her want to blush and look away, but she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. “Do you always get headaches when you use your powers?” she asked, affecting a tone of almost clinical concern. 

Not losing eye contact he took a few steps towards her. “Yeah, it’s a drag. Xavier says he has some ideas how to help, but I think he might be making it up.” 

Kitty realized he was backing her into a corner by the stairs so she side-stepped and moved around him, keeping her eyes locked on his. “If X says so, he means it.” It was becoming a game and they were both smiling with a competitive gleam as they began circling each other, seeing who would blink first. 

“If you say so. I’m willing to stick around and give this place a chance,” he said casually, but she could feel the intensity notching up as their circle grew smaller and brought them closer together. 

Her brain was looking for the next cool thing to say when she suddenly collided with another body. Startled, she grabbed hold for support and realized who it was she was clinging to. “Bobby! Hi!” She stood up and shot an arm around his waist, startling Bobby who seemed unable to find the right words for the situation. She quickly jumped in: “Lance Alvers, Bobby Drake.” She laid her head against Bobby’s chest. She didn’t know why she was doing anything she was doing. 

Lance’s smile faded. He shot up an inquisitive eyebrow, pushed his hair off his forehead, and reached out a hand. “Yo, Bobby. I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” 

“I think so,” Bobby responded with a smile. “We’re going to be roommates!” He reached out to take Lance’s proffered hand, some confusion ensuing before he realized that Lance was trying to bump knuckles, not shake hands. 

Lance’s lip curled back up into the cocky smile. “So, Bobby, we’re gonna have some good times, am I right?” 

“Sure,” Bobby responded. “We all are. Welcome to the school.” 

Kitty inwardly winced as she barked out an utterly artificial laugh. 

Six minutes later, she had just finished escorting Lance’s parents into Xavier’s office and was reviewing the memory of watching Lance’s butt climb the stairs. If only he wouldn’t keep turning and looking at her whenever she had a dirty thought about him. She was at a loss to explain the brainfart that had lead to her grabbing Bobby like that. She was making a fatal mess of her life, that much was clear. 

She was going to run upstairs and join the boys, make sure Bobby didn’t say anything stupid, when she heard raised voices on the other side of the paneled walls, specifically the raised voice of Mrs. Alvers. During the short walk from the car to the Xavier’s office, the couple had continued to make it clear that they considered themselves deserving of special treatment. Kitty wanted to flatten them, especially the loudly condescending mother. 

And now they were at it with the Professor. What was their problem? Didn’t they see that X wanted the best for Lance? Curiosity overtook her good judgment. _Surely_ , she reasoned, _X would be too involved to notice if she…_ She calculated where the Professor’s closet was on the other side of the wall and, looking around to make sure she was unobserved, phased into the dark space between his jackets and coats. 

“You saw what my poor darling goes through!” Mrs. Alvers was practically shouting. “He used his so-called _gifts_ for one second, and he was in unbearable pain.” 

The Professor was responding in his usual calm voice, “Mrs. Alvers, we have discussed this many times. I believe that with training the boy will —” 

“You believe, you _believe!_ Have you spent hours nursing him through his headaches? Have you taken him to the best neurologists in the country?” 

Mr. Alvers spoke up, “Darling, please. They were not experts on the… on the mutants like the Professor is, am I right?” 

“An expert,” she responded derisively. “You listen to me, Mr. Xavier. My husband has donated enough money to your school to ensure the best of care for Lance, but if we do not see some improvement in his condition soon, I swear to you we will pull him out of here and place him in Dr. Turcott’s clinic!” 

The Professor sounded more serious now. “I thought I had made my opinion on Christian Turcott’s practice quite clear, Mrs. Alvers. I have nothing but suspicion for his methodology and no reason to believe his claims of success.” 

It was Mr. Alvers who responded. “That is your opinion because he is your business rival, Professor. No, don’t say it isn’t so. Dr. Turcott says he can help Lance with his pain and, if necessary, get him over his condition entirely.” 

“It is not a ‘condition,’ Mr. Alvers. Lance is a mutant and will be for life.” 

“So _you_ say,” Dominic Alvers continued calmly, “and we are giving you the first chance because I believe — yes, darling, _I believe_ the Professor has made a better case. But if it doesn’t work out, I will have to bow to my wife’s desires and remove Lance from your institution.” 

Kitty didn’t know how Xavier was keeping his cool. She wanted to leap from the closet and give them a piece of her mind. “Thank you for giving me that chance,” he responded diplomatically. “I believe you will see a marked improvement in the quality of Lance’s life quite quickly. Now, if you would please join me, lunch has already begun, and I believe our cook has outdone herself.” Kitty heard them get up. She prepared to phase out into the hall, but then Xavier spoke again. “Actually, if you would please go ahead of me. I have a bit of school business to attend to. It’s straight down the hall and to your left at the end. You’ll hear the others. Thank you so much.” The door of his office closed. 

Kitty held her breath, but the darkness suddenly seemed to be illuminated by a telepathic voice she knew all too well. _*Ms. Pryde, would you please step out of the closet? I wish to have a few words with you about respecting people’s privacy.*_

 

*** 

 

“It’s not a very big room is it?” Lance asked, looking around. 

_No,_ Bobby thought, watching as his new roommate filled every available surface with his own belongings. _It’s not._ He sighed as his private retreat became a thing of the past. 

“I used to go to this boarding school in Switzerland before my powers, y’know, got all crazy and shit. Those were cool rooms. View of the mountains and everything.” 

“We better hurry or there won’t be any lunch left,” Bobby prodded. 

“Heh, especially once my Dad gets there!” he said, digging into one of his bags until he found a red polo shirt which he threw on the bed. “He can eat like a bull!” 

“Where’s he from?” Bobby said, plopping down on his bed and watching Lance as he pulled a fancy leather toilet kit from a second bag. 

“We’re Greek. Well, Dad’s side anyway. Mom’s mostly Swedish.” Bobby was going to say something when Lance suddenly pulled off his shirt and tossed it in the corner. The words caught in Bobby’s throat as he saw the 17 year-old’s muscular torso which already had some black hairs ringing the large, dark nipples. “Domenic Petros is his real name, but he changed it when he started his company back in the Sixties.” Bobby’s leg started twitching spasmodically. 

“Oh. Okay,” Bobby said blankly as Lance pulled a deodorant stick out of the toilet kit and lifted his arm to apply it. Bobby found himself completely mesmerized by the way the muscles of Lance’s shoulders met his chest muscles in the vortex of black, shiny hair. 

Lance picked that moment to turn towards his quiet roommate. Bobby looked away a second too late. Or would it have been better not to look away at all? He blushed, and a twisted smile sprung up on Lance’s face, the big jaw poking out in challenge. He pulled on the red shirt, and it was the first time Bobby understood how something could be someone’s color. 

“Hey, roommate,” Lance Alvers said to him in a deep, intimate voice, pushing the hair off his forehead. “Let’s go get that lunch.” 

Bobby followed obediently. 

 

*** 

 

_DEREKtheRED >there’s one guy on the stoop opposite. actually takes out his gun and aims it when I go by_   
_myshame >thats not funny. call the cops_   
_sisterblue >omg be carefull_   
_**GenePool welcomes knifeinthehead89_   
_myshame >what do the other neibors say?_   
_knifeinthehead89 >ORANGE COUNTY MUTANT REGISTRATION PROVISION WILL APPEAR ON BALLOTS IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION_   
_DEREKtheRED >fuck him! I’ve lived here since I was a kid. my damn block!_   
_myshame >dude im scared. don’t ask for trouble_   
_DEREKtheRED >I want trouble. I want FUCKING NOISE!!_   
_sisterblue >yr crazy. talk to your gf she’ll calm u down_   
_DEREKtheRED >She’s leaving me. won’t stand up for herself._   
_sisterblue >Derek I’m sorry_   
_DEREKtheRED >I wish my power was like a nuclear bomb! blow up the whole city_   
_sisterblue >Im sorry Derek. maybe u shld go with her?_   
_myshame >Derek! then you’d be as bad as they r._   
_DEREKtheRED >No! This is my home! Shit. cant even sleep without her. They take everything away. The support group, my gf. They want us dead. I won’t_ go down without a fight.   
_sisterblue >aw, guy. it’ll be ok   
__knifeinthehead89 >TWO MUTANTS IN COLORADO, 13 AND 15, FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDE PACT_


	11. Two Small Rooms, Part 1

It was a shack of grease in a block of grime. It was a counter, six cracked stools, three tables, a deep fryer, a coffee maker, and a gas fire to char the meat just like the cavemen did. There was a surprisingly large storeroom in back where Barrow wasn’t supposed to be sleeping and had meant to only temporarily. But this was the greasy spoon that time forgot and, so far, the inspectors hadn’t busted the place for zoning violations. The owner was pretty much AWOL, but that was fine by Barrow; after all these years, he could keep the place running without him. For better or worse, he had admit it was home. 

Not that things weren’t tough; he had lost his latest waitress yesterday when she walked out in a crack-fueled fury, declaring that she was meant for better things. During the busy times of day — especially at lunch — he needed that second pair of hands, but he’d survive. Barrow remembered when he used to talk about being meant for better things. Now he talked about surviving another day. 

When he was busy (and today, working alone, it was as busy as busy got), he entered a kind of trance of efficient oblivion. He didn’t register human beings — only eggs, fries, coffees, danishes, bills passed over and change passed back. He didn’t see faces, only his brown hands, cracked and scarred as they cooked, served and collected tips. If the boy had come in ten minutes earlier, Barrow wouldn’t have even registered him. Actually, he would have been an annoyance, staring for a whole minute at the menu board through big eyes that were alive with a drama of hunger and frustration, and then back at the meager, crumpled bills in his hand before finally snarling, “Coffee. Milk and three sugars,” and sulking over to a table to stare at the grey morning through the grimy window. Barrow could hear the boy’s stomach growl over the sound of traffic outside. 

The boy had long finished the coffee, and was busily writing in a small copy book that he had pulled out of his battered leather portfolio. He gave Barrow a sideways look from time to time, probably wondering how many minutes at the table one coffee had bought him. Barrow watched him covertly, impressed at the intensity he was bringing to his writing, almost like he was pulling parts from deep inside himself and splashing them on the page. For every line wrought, his body twisted and his face continually mutated through a gamut of emotions from pain to ecstasy. Eventually, he stopped looking up at Barrow, and so was caught by surprise when a plate suddenly appeared in front of him containing an omelet, hash browns and three slices of tomato. 

“What the hell?” the kid burst out, as if someone had just thrown water in his face. He looked up at Barrow. “I didn’t order this.” 

“I know,” he replied flatly. “I didn’t get you mixed up with some other folks.” He looked around the empty restaurant and the boy followed his gaze. 

The kid eyed the older man suspiciously, tossing the long hair from his eyes. “I can’t pay for this. Why are you giving it me?” 

Barrow shrugged. “You looked hungry.” The boy stared down at the steaming plate but didn’t move. 

Barrow deliberately turned and headed back behind the counter, calling over his shoulder, “Eat it or don’t, kid. It’s made now.” He deliberately kept his back to the boy as he cleaned breakfast dishes, and soon enough the sound of a fork on a plate and less-than-delicate chomping told him that his food was appreciated. 

It was only a few minutes later that he noticed the kid get up and move to the door. The young man seemed particularly vulnerable as he turned to look back in Barrow’s direction. When he realized he had the cook’s attention, his eyes lowered to the floor and he muttered, “thanks,” before turning and all but running out the door. 

 

*** 

 

The first weeks of school were as wonderful and nerve-wracking as Bobby had imagined. The course work was going to challenge him academically far beyond anything he had experienced before. At the same time, the teachers were working hard to inspire them and to assure them no one would be left behind. Furthermore, a spirit of camaraderie had quickly developed among all the students and there was always someone around to help when you were stuck. Things were chaotic, there was no doubt about that; it was a new school and there were always details no one had thought about beforehand. In any crisis, Bobby was the first person the administration turned to lend a hand and the first his fellow students turned to for guidance. Did he resent this? Far from it, he realized. He felt like he mattered. For the first time in his life, he felt that there was a place in the world that would miss him if he disappeared. 

_What was wrong with the Drake family?_

Bobby kept asking himself that question. How could four people live together all those years and fail to form a community? Even the closeness he had enjoyed with Ronny had only emerged as their parents had drifted apart. Ruefully, he noted that closeness had proved all too fragile, leaving the Drakes, once again, as four islands instead of a continent. Now he had another model with which to compare his family: a houseful of kids and adults struggling to make something together. Bobby loved the bustle of the day and the jostling of different personalities struggling to find a way together. Sure there were conflicts that needed to be resolved and personalities that didn’t gel (he wasn’t sure that Kitty and Rahne would ever make compatible roommates), but there was also a recognition that these problems were inconsequential when they were all so lucky to be living openly and thriving in their all-mutant environment. 

Adversity brought them closer; that much was clear. Twice a week, a group of between five and ten students would meet for Bobby’s peer counseling group, and they would support each other through a lot painful discussions. They spoke of fear and alienation, of anger, violence, and abuse. They confessed to the guilt they felt for being a burden on their parents, and they admitted to ways they had used their powers that they weren’t proud of. On a couple of occasions, after the group had broken up for the night, one or another of the students had stayed behind to say things to Bobby alone that they couldn’t speak to a crowd. These private sessions were scary for Bobby and he was afraid he would say the wrong thing, make them feel worse. Usually he ended up convincing the student to make an appointment with Xavier. When the Professor had told him how much he was doing for the school through these meetings, he had been almost too overwhelmed to say thank you. While it was sometimes hard to help people, it never felt like a burden. It felt like a privilege. 

Most of the students had been to at least one session, even if they only listened and never opened their mouths. In fact, Bobby realized that only one had never attended at all. 

“How was ‘truth or dare’ tonight, Big Bob?” Lance asked from his bed as Bobby entered, feeling particularly drained. Lance was in sweats and a muscle shirt, making occasional notes in his laptop as he pored over a physics text. “Any hot girl confess to being a shape-changed dude?” 

Bobby didn’t answer. He sat heavily in his desk chair and logged on to MSN. Mike was online but labeled as “away.” He wished he didn’t still have a geography paper to research, because what he really wanted was to just put on his headphones and fall asleep to some soothing trance. He looked over at Lance who was stretching like a cat, making his bare arms and bare feet flex and relax repeatedly. Bobby could have sworn that Lance showed off his body deliberately. He was always flaunting half-draped bits of anatomy. When he changed, he stayed in each state of undress for longer than seemed necessary. This had made Bobby nervous until he realized that the audience Lance was performing for was his mirror. He was constantly checking how he looked from different angles, pulling model poses, flexing muscles, and otherwise checking out just how hot he looked. His smug expression seemed to imply that he always met his own rigorous standards. 

Not that it wasn’t distracting, especially the times Lance would strike up a conversation with Bobby as he got ready for bed. Lance slept in the raw, something Bobby found unimaginable and kind of panic-inducing. To Bobby, it would be like leaving the cork out of the genie’s bottle: who knew what would flow out when you weren’t looking? 

He had never been friends with anyone like Lance. He was rich, arrogant, and sure of himself. Furthermore, he had a wickedly sarcastic tongue. He took endless delight in roasting Bobby for being the mansion’s “Mother Teresa,” for sleeping in briefs and t-shirt, for refusing to join him in skewering the teachers behind their backs. Yet he never seemed to treat Bobby as an inferior. He never sought to wound. From the beginning, Lance had acted like Bobby was on his team. Was it just because they were roommates? Was it because being Bobby’s friend gave him more access to Kitty? 

Bobby and Kitty spent a lot of time talking about Lance and, though it made Bobby uncomfortable, he never failed to participate in the discussion. 

“You know, he’s surprisingly smart,” she had begun the other day, veering suddenly away from whatever they had been talking about a minute earlier. “He’d be easier to understand if he were just a monkey coasting on daddy’s money; but he’s one of Ororo’s best history students.” 

“He drives Scott crazy in ‘powers’ class,” Bobby had confided. “Half the time he refuses to even try stuff, and when he does, he doesn’t seem interested at all in controlling himself. He keeps knocking the whole class on its ass with his earthquakes.” 

Kitty had jumped in: “I know! And then he has the headaches. On Tuesday, I sat there holding an icepack on his head for an hour.” She had sighed kind of wistfully. 

Bobby’s voice had been sharper than he had intended: “Why didn’t you just take him to see Jean?” 

“I did! She gave me the ice pack and I sat with him! What’s the problem?” They had grown silent. Kitty hadn’t seen how Bobby knitted his brow as she went on. “Have you ever noticed his smell? It’s very… individual. Kind of warm and nutty.” 

“No,” he had answered thickly. “I never noticed.” Which was a lie. 

“He better get his shit together,” she had concluded grimly. “I’ll kill him if he gets his ass thrown out of here. And it’s a nice ass!” She had blushed at her own comment. 

Bobby had risen and walked out, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve got homework; and apparently you’ve got to sit here and think about Lance Alvers’ ass!” 

In their dorm, the evening progressed with Bobby digging into geography and Lance putting aside physics in favor of some reading for the Professor’s ‘Literature of the Oppressed’ course. Bobby could hear his roommate’s inevitable hip-hop leaking out loudly from his headphones as he read. He was getting used to the sound after a week of reticent, martyred annoyance. 

Lance suddenly pulled the buds from ears and asked, “Was Kitty at the meeting tonight?” 

“No,” Bobby responded wearily. “She doesn’t come a lot.” 

“She values her mystery, our Kitty-Cat. She’s pretty hot for a math geek, don’t you think? I like those small kind of perky tits.” 

Bobby closed his textbook and chewed on a fingernail. As a guy, was he supposed to be talking like that, too, or was he supposed to tell Lance not to be crude about his friend? 

Lance poked at his silence. “Hey, Big Bob. What’s the story between you two? Pete and Sam think she’s your girlfriend, but frankly, I don’t see it.” 

Bobby was not at all happy that this type of speculation was a topic at the mansion. 

“No. We’re just friends,” he answered, which made him feel like a loser. “We… we used to make out a lot before school started, but we kind of stopped that.” 

“Oh. That’s too bad, bro. Like I said, she’s hot.” 

They returned to studying for another hour before they went one at a time down the hall to the bathroom to wash up and get ready for bed. Lying in bed with a fantasy novel, Bobby tried to ignore Lance dancing with his reflection in only his boxers before he shut off his portable stereo, stripped naked and jumped into bed. Merciful silence descended, but Bobby felt a cord of tension rising, because somehow he knew the discussion wasn’t finished. Lance finally spoke again. “So… it wouldn’t bend you out of shape if I, like, asked her out?” 

Bobby almost tried pretending that he was already asleep, but he knew he wouldn’t get away with it. “No, man,” he said in an approximation of cool. “That’s fine. Whatever.” 

“Excellent! Those lips must be sweet, am I right?” 

Bobby snapped back, “I’ve got training with Scott at 7 a.m. tomorrow; can we shut up and sleep? Please?!” 

Lance didn’t seem put out by his tone. “Oh, sure. Thanks, man. Goodnight.” 

Bobby rolled over, putting his back to Lance, punching a fresh furrow in his pillow and planting his head in it. He willed the darkness to swallow him up. He was almost asleep when Lance said in a low, horny voice, “Yo, Big Bob, you’ll tell me what moves make her really wet, okay?” 

 

*** 

 

It had taken nearly two weeks for John to return to the diner. One of the most important lessons he had learned since he left home (and maybe before; it was hard to remember how he felt before) was that you don’t want to be in debt to anyone. Contracts were slippery things. Whereas you might think you just owe someone a nod and a tap dance, they might think your right arm is a more equitable payback. 

So what was he doing, standing across the road, working up the nerve to go back in and fish for another meal? Well, he was hungry. Holy fuck was he hungry. And sometimes you were forced to act and damn the consequences; you’d find out later what you had to pay. _Besides,_ he thought, _I never asked for the fucking food. He gave it to me. I didn’t beg._ Of course, returning was begging, wasn’t it? He stood up a little taller, tried to feel more badass. He had a horrible suspicion he just looked pathetic. 

He waited until the morning rush was thinning before crossing the road to stand in the doorway. He waited only a minute in this uncertain state before the tall black man who seemed to run the place solo nodded at him to sit. Without a word spoken between them, pancakes and bacon soon appeared in front of John along with a big glass of orange juice. He dug into the meal hungrily, chasing the last of the syrup around the plate with the last bite of pancake. He sat up and belched quietly, watching the man cleaning up and refilling the coffee of the one remaining breakfast customer. 

He came over to pick up John’s dishes. John looked up at the face, trying to figure the guy out. He had grey at his temple, but his face wasn’t very lined. He was strong and acted with economy of movement, slow but unrelenting. 

“How was it?” the man asked. 

“Good.” John wished he could really express the depth of his gratitude, but the contract thing was starting to loom. “Look,” he said. “I haven’t got money today, but I’ll be able to pay for this soon.” 

“Tell you what,” the man said as he stacked dishes in the sink and turned on the water. “You want to pay for it, you can help me out during the lunchtime rush. How’s that sound?” 

John only hesitated a minute before saying, “Yeah, cool.” The man nodded and turned back to the dishes. John felt something relax inside him; he could handle this contract. He even liked the terms. 

As he began to scrub at the plates, the man said, “So, if you’re gonna be working here, I oughta know your name.” 

“John.” 

A smile. “No kidding? Mine, too! John Barrow. Well, I guess you can be ‘Little John’.” 

John wiped his mouth and smirked. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” 

Barrow laughed. “Fine, you’re ‘Big John.’ No skin off my ass as long as you follow orders.” 

John knit his hands together behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “I can do that.” 

“Excellent. You gonna do some more writing until then?” 

John gave him a suspicious glance. The guy remembered. The guy was observant. This made John nervous because anonymity could save your life. On the other hand, he kind of liked the idea that he was memorable. 

“Yeah, I think I will. Can I sit here?” 

Barrow smiled. “I’ll bring you a coffee, Big John.” He started whistling, a sound that accompanied John’s writing until it was time to start work. The diner filled as soon as noon hit, and the turnover of customers — the dizzying speed of preparation and clearing — kept him breathless for the next two hours. But John was smart and Barrow only had to show him something once before he caught on. He slipped at one point, breaking three plates and a water glass, but Barrow just pointed him at the broom and dustpan and left him no time to beat himself up. 

At two o’clock, he ate a burger and fries, cleaned his dishes and gathered up his portfolio. 

He moved to the doorway and said to Barrow, who was sitting at the counter drinking a Coke, “Okay, well thanks, man.” 

Barrow nodded. “You’re welcome. And thanks for your help, Big John.” 

Silence. John shifted his portfolio to his other hand and shook out his hair. What was he waiting for? “Okay, then. See you around.” As he closed the door behind himself and made his way down the sidewalk, he felt a weird sense of loss. He tried to chide himself for thinking bullshit. _Don’t linger, always move on,_ he told himself. That was another rule. He thought about the day ahead. How many tricks should he turn tonight? He pulled some bills out of his pocket. Barrow had shared the tips with him. _Fuck it_ , he thought. _I deserve the fucking day off._

The next morning, John was back at the diner at 6 a.m. His intention to have a night off hadn’t quite worked out, and things had suddenly gone from bad to worse. His money was gone, but there was no use crying over it. He rubbed the painful souvenir on his right cheek and tried to put it all behind him. He was tired as hell, but he wasn’t going to show it to Barrow. He sat himself down at the counter on the last stool and ate the meal that was soon placed before him. 

After it was done, without a word of invitation, he stood and moved behind the counter, where he started working on the dirty dishes and then peeling the potatoes that the big man handed him. A small smile was sneaking round the edges of Barrow’s face, but otherwise, neither fessed up to any feelings; they just worked side by side as if they had been doing it for years instead of since yesterday. 

It was a long day but ‘Big John’ (corny as it sounded, he liked his new nickname) didn’t mind at all. Maybe he’d become a short order cook himself. It was a portable skill, according to Little John Barrow who became more loquacious as the morning rush thinned and they prepared for the lunch crowd. 

“With just some basic skills, you can go anywhere, Big John!,” he explained as he scrubbed down the grill and refilled the sugar dispensers. “You can work on a container ship and sail the seas, or at a tourist trap on top of a mountain. Long as you know how to sling a burger!” 

John imagined that. He could go somewhere far away where his past could never find him. He would work and write, and there would be no one to bug him. He could forget about his time with his stepfather, his time with the gang, his time on the streets. 

He could even forget about being a damned mutant and all the trouble that caused him. Except he couldn’t. Here was this great place to work with a no-bullshit guy he could learn something useful from. It was real and raw and smelly in just the right way… and it would all be perfect if it weren’t for the damned gas stove! It was an old, badly regulated piece of crap, and all day John had to listen to the taunting voice of the fire, wheedling and cajoling him to let it free. The fire was hungry for the grease-caked walls and the old, dry furniture. It told John just where the weaknesses were in the gas lines, where it might escape with just a little help. “They call me a _pilot_ light,” it seemed to say “Let me _fly_.” 

But it was just a pissant little ember and he could ignore it. He was stronger than the motherfucker. 

The diner closed its doors at 4:00 in the afternoon. They cleaned the dishes, wiped the tables and checked the stock in the fridge and pantry. John gave a sigh of relief when Barrow shut off the damned pilot light at last. He opened two Cokes for them, and they sat wearily at the counter. 

“And that’s how it goes every day,” Barrow concluded. 

“It’s not so bad,” John told him through a yawn. “You get to watch the freak parade. Kind of entertaining.” 

Barrow grinned, “You have a unique way of looking at things, Big John. You gonna write about them in your journal?” 

“It’s not a journal,” he swirled his can and listened to it bubbling. “It’s poetry. Don’t laugh.” 

“Why would I laugh? You good?” 

“Whatever.” 

“No, are you a good poet or not, Big John? You must know.” 

John gave him an appraising once-over, figuring how much to reveal. His default was always “nothing” but with some people — the ones who earned it — you had to give a little. “Yeah, sometimes. Most of the time it’s all garbage and you scratch if out and start again. But sometimes you trip on a clump of horseshit and land in a pile of gold, y’know?” 

“I think I do, yeah.” Barrow scratched the graying stubble on his chin. “So, you got a place you’re sleeping these days?” 

John didn’t like where the conversation was going and stalled for time by draining his Coke. The thing about personal questions, he had learned, was they always traveled in packs. “I got friends to stay with,” he said with some finality. 

“They the ones who gave you the shiner?” Barrow asked levelly, leaning in closer. 

John’s hand went reflexively to his sore cheek and he shot Barrow a look. “It’s not a shiner, and no they aren’t. You got anything else you want to know, officer?” He rubbed the bruise and thought about the hustlers who had roughed him up last night. Shit, was it his fault if the trick chose him instead of their cracked-out asses? 

Barrow put his hands up in surrender, “Be cool, Big John. What you do is your business.” He sounded a bit nervous as he said. “I was just wondering if you maybe wanted to crash here with me tonight.” He put a big hand on John’s shoulder. 

John’s stiffened at the touch and he looked away. _Yeah,_ he thought, _always read the fucking contract before you sign._

Barrow continued, “I got an extra mattress in the back. I’m not supposed to be sleeping there either, but no one’s thrown me out yet. Just gotta make sure it doesn’t look too homey in case the inspectors come around.” 

The hand on his shoulder seemed to weigh a million pounds, and an awful sadness welled up in John’s chest. He bit his lip and made himself tough as he appraised the situation. Well, it beat not knowing where he’d sleep tonight and with whom. He looked Barrow up and down with something that he hoped read like cool calculation. Nobody owned him and he would have to make that clear. But he really was tired. It had been a week since he had a really solid rest, and they had worked hard all day. Barrow was okay. He could sure do worse out on the street, so why not? 

“Okay, yeah. Thanks,” he told Barrow grudgingly. “I can help out tomorrow, too, if you like.” 

Barrow smiled and removed his hand. “Hey, that sounds good. I’ll teach you the secrets of a great milkshake if you’re lucky. You look kind of beat, Big John. Why don’t you go out back and catch a nap now?” 

“What are you going to do?” John asked, sounding more nervous than he had meant to. 

“I have to go over to the bank and deposit the cash, get change for tomorrow.” He pulled on a weather beaten windbreaker. 

His voice a bit too loud, John asked, “You locking me in?” 

Barrow paused before answering quietly, “The key to the deadbolt is on a hook under the cash. Go whenever you like. I hope you won’t, though, John.” 

John cursed himself for a fool — and a weak fool, at that. “Whatever, man,” he managed. He was damned if his heart was going to open up again just to get fucked with. He knew the score and he knew his worth. 

His eyes were seriously drooping, but he waited until Barrow had taken the cash and locked the door behind himself before he went to check out the backroom. Dim light came through a grimy, high window above a fire door, and it barely offered enough light for him to find a cheap kid’s clown lamp beside Barrow’s mattress. He switched on the light and surveyed the room. Strangely, it was bigger than the diner itself. Boxes were stacked up with paper napkins and other dry goods. There was a small, grimy bathroom off to one side. Barrow’s territory was against one wall, a few feet from the door to the diner area. There was a mattress, the lamp and a couple of cardboard boxes containing his clothes. There was another pair of shoes, a pair of boots, some old issues of Sports Illustrated and a couple of porn mags. That was it. The second mattress, dusty and musty, was leaning against the wall and John pulled it down, making his own personal area as far from Barrow’s as possible. He snapped off the clown light and felt his way back to his newly staked territory. 

He lay down right away, determined to get some shut eye before the older man returned. The truth was, John hated being alone and had done ever since he was a kid when he would usually finish the night in his mom’s bed — at least until the asshole had moved in. But now being alone was the only way he really knew he was safe. The darkness and quiet pressed against him, and sleep took him fast and hard. 

In dreams of mazes, he rounded corners without end. From somewhere close by he heard a sinister voice purring, “I’m back, St. John.” He awoke with a start on the old mattress. The light from the small window showed the last of the day. He could smell fish frying and the hiss of the gas stove. (“I’m back, St. John”) _Fuck you_ , he thought dismissively. 

He wandered into the diner and sat a table, silently watching Barrow cook for them. John had nothing to say, but that was all right; he would just say the wrong thing at this point. Barrow didn’t seem to mind the silence. Outside, the wind had picked up and it whistled through the big, greasy ventilation fan. 

After dinner, they moved to the backroom and Barrow lit a joint, holding it out to John who waved his hand in decline. The 40-watt clown light barely lit Barrow’s mattress, and the rest of the room was shadowed — sinister and full of danger. 

“You sure you don’t want none, Big John? It’s good shit.” 

Speaking seemed to hurt. “No, thanks, man. I-I don’t like to lose control. It’s not pretty when I do.” 

“Suit yourself. For me it ain’t so much _losing_ control as just letting it _sliiiiide_ a while.” He chuckled and then took a deep hit. He held the smoke before letting it go with a deep sigh of satisfaction. 

_Just get it over with,_ John thought and his stomach clenched. 

Barrow seemed to vanish in his warm cloud of pot, wheezing and sighing like a dragon in his lair, eyes closed meditatively. When he spoke, his voice was thick and mellow. “I been slinging hash in this joint four years now, Big John. When I started, I figured maybe it would last a couple of months like my other jobs, but I guess when you float long enough, you eventually find your level.” 

John stared out from the darkness in his end of the room into the pool of light by Barrow’s, the lamp reflecting on the man’s shiny black face. Quietly, John pulled off his t-shirt and began unbuttoning his jeans. 

Barrow took another long hit off his joint before he spoke again. “I was in the Gulf in ’92 and when I got back from ‘saving the world,’ it was hard to find my place again, y’know? In the desert, the oil fires were burning day and night. Grease and smoke. The world was just grease and smoke, and I couldn’t fucking wait to get back to the U.S. of A. and some clean blue skies. But the damnedest fucking thing, Big John — when I got my walking papers and stepped out onto the streets of New York, fuck me if it wasn’t all just more grease and smoke. And the motherfucking sun seemed just as far away as it had in Kuwait.” 

The wind outside howled in response, and a sudden draft brought goose bumps to John’s arms and legs as he stood slowly in his dark corner. 

Barrow’s eyes were blurred, seeing ghosts from long ago. “But what can you do?” he asked the ghosts. “You gotta eat, you gotta sleep somewhere. And here’s where I’m doing it, so what-the-fuck. I’m better off with…Hey, what the fuck are you…?” 

Barrow stuttered to a halt, mouth gaping, staring uncomprehendingly up at John who stood naked before him, arms at his side, presenting himself in the pale, idiot light of the plastic clown. John tried to focus on Barrow’s swirling, stoned eyes, and he tossed his long hair from his face, trying as with any trick, to seem self-possessed and free of resentment. 

Barrow blinked stupidly and shook his head. “What the fuck, Big John? What’re you doing?” 

John bit his lip and said, “It’s okay. I’ll do whatever you want. I-I’m really grateful for everything —” 

“Jesus Christ, boy!” Barrow barked at him and pulled himself up against the wall. “This isn’t what I… Did you think I wanted you to…?” 

John’s face was suddenly suffused with panic. “But don’t you want…? Isn’t that why you asked me to stay?” 

Barrow’s face was constricted, furious and betrayed. He looked away from John into the corner of the room. “How can you think that? Do I _look_ like a queer to you?!” 

John felt his stomach lurch, the eggs from his dinner rising partway up his gullet where they burned like shame. He covered his genitals, turned on his heel and ran for his mattress. In the dark, he struggled to get into his clothes. He fell as he pulled up the jeans, landing hard on his hip with a cry. 

“Hey,” Barrow called to him. “You okay? John… Big John, look I’m sorry! You surprised me…” 

John struggled quickly to his feet, which he pushed into greasy sneakers. He headed for the door leading to the diner area, pulling his t-shirt on as he moved. 

Why did he think Barrow wanted…? How could he be such a _fucktard?!_

He had to get out. He realized he didn’t know where his jacket was but _fuck it!_ Fighting back his tears, he knew he just had to GO! NOW!! 

John could hear Barrow stumbling to his feet, trying to get to him, calling out, “John, I’m sorry, it’s just a misunderstanding! Please don’t go!” 

John ran through the diner to the front door. He rattled the bolted door and gave a cry of frustration. He spun around in the half-light that was coming through the caged glass window and then ran for the counter, feeling for the deadbolt key. It rattled on contact and he pulled at it, cutting his hand on the hook. He hurried back to the door, struggling with the key in the lock, thinking, _Get out! Get out!_ He heard Barrow behind him and froze, not daring to turn. 

Barrow spoke quietly and calmly now. “You have to lift the door a bit for the lock to work. Listen to me, Big John.” 

John stood silent, bent over the lock, unable to turn around. 

“Listen, I need you to leave the key here, okay?” John didn’t reply. Barrow paused a second before continuing. “What happened in there… just a misunderstanding. No harm done. I want you here because you’re a good guy and a hard worker. Go now if you gotta, but I’ll be listening for you if you want back in later on.” 

The shame was a fire that John’s powers could not control. It tore at him mercilessly, and the only thing he could think to do was jump — leap into the windy night and run from it. He knew this wasn’t Barrow’s fault. It was him, it was all him who’d made his life the mess it was. Somewhere inside himself, as he tumbled in freefall, he found a ledge of stone that he could grab onto. His voice was hard, almost a man’s as he said. “I’m not coming back.” 

And the damned fool Barrow just stayed calm; didn’t leap across the room to pummel him for what he’d done; just said in his thick, low voice, “That’s your choice, Big John. But I hope you do.” 

John lifted the door and the key turned easily. A fierce gust of wind pushed back at him, and he couldn’t open it for a second. He turned and put his back to the door, pushing with his legs until he forced it open against the howling night. Just before he turned and ran, his eyes fell on an ancient poster of a milkshake, chocolate foam in tall beveled glass, red and white barber-pole straw piercing the sky with a promise of sweetness. Leaving the key in the lock, he turned and ran into the night, sneakers pounding the pavement. 

 

*** 

 

At nine o’clock that evening, Bobby was in the second floor lounge that the Professor kept calling “The Music Room” despite that fact that they still had no instruments, recordings or equipment in it. In fact, the only things even vaguely musical in the room were two beaten-up posters from the 60s that X had dug up out of some trunk: The Beatles and some crazy looking conductor guy named Bernstein. Bobby was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the beanbag chair that held the miserable figure of Hayward Jones. 

“Jones,” he said in a soothing voice, “You gotta sleep tonight! Scott’s threatening an in-dorm curfew for everyone, he’s so fed up. You can’t watch TV all night, man.” 

The 14-year-old had pulled a fold of the beanbag over his head earlier in the one-sided discussion and now made an indefinable noise. 

“What?” Bobby asked. “I didn’t catch that.” 

Jones burst upwards into a sitting position, hair sweaty, glasses crooked, eyes threatening tears. “Why can’t he just leave me alone?!” 

“He’s worried about you, buddy!” Bobby put a hand on Jones’ foot and gave it a shake. “We all are. You look exhausted! Doug says you hardly stay in bed at all. And you’re down watching TV every night, man! Three in the morning you’re still there. How are you gonna get through school like that?” 

The kid screamed, “I like TV!” and started to cry, turning his face from Bobby in embarrassment. 

Bobby looked towards the door, wishing he had closed it when they had come in. Just then Kitty and Lance went by, leaning into each other and whispering intimately. Kitty stopped and waved, looking concerned when she saw Jones weeping with his head buried in the beanbag. She made an inquisitive gesture at Bobby who waved at them to go. Lance winked and put an arm around Kitty’s shoulder. She leaned into him and they moved on. 

They were widely rumored to be an item and weren’t doing anything to dispel the rumor. When Sam had asked him the other day whether he minded, he had kind of snapped at him, “Why should I?” before softening his tone and saying that he was glad they were happy, and that he and Kitty had never really been a big thing. But it did bug him. He was worried he looked like a loser and, frankly, he felt like he had been pushed to the side by his closest friend at the mansion in favor of his roommate. 

“Hey, Jones,” he offered, “I know what insomnia’s like. When I’m stressed out, I lie awake forever. Sometimes it helps to tell someone what’s bugging me.” 

Jones rolled onto his back, sniffling, the fight knocked out of him. “It’s not insomnia. It’s not like that.” 

“Then what’s it like? Tell me.” Jones said nothing and Bobby felt a small surge of anger. He had imagined the kid letting him in, confiding in him like a big brother, but he just didn’t know what to do for him. Bobby finally stood and reached out a hand to help him up. “Listen, we’ll head upstairs. Just put on some music you like on your headphones and try to relax. I’m sure you’ll sleep. You must be _really, really_ tired.” Bobby’s attempt at using the power of suggestion sounded lame even to his own ears. 

Jones took Bobby’s hand and let himself be hauled up to standing. Not very convincingly, he told Bobby, “Yeah, I’ll sleep. I promise.” He pushed his skewed glasses back in place. 

“And no going down to the TV room tonight?” 

“I promise.” Bobby felt like Jones was just humoring him. They walked to the boy’s dorms in silence. What were they going to do for this little enigma? 

Alone in his room, Bobby had been studying math for half an hour, forcing himself to get lost in the numbers, not to think about Jones or Lance or Kitty, when the door suddenly swung open and there stood the happy couple. 

“Hey, Big Bob,” Lance called. “Come with us, I got something I want to share.” 

Bobby found himself wanting to act sulky and bitter; but he was curious. “What is it? Lance just smirked in reply. “Kitty?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “I have no clue. Mr. Mysterious here wants us to go out to the gazebo with him.” Lance stroked the back of her head and she all but purred. 

“I’m busy,” Bobby replied with an edge, turning back to his books, wishing he wasn’t reacting so childishly. “You guys go.” 

Lance marched in and closed the book in front of him. “No way, roommate. The kitty-cat says we’re neglecting you and she’s right; so get up!” 

Despite his misgivings, Bobby was touched that they wanted to include him. He pushed the book away, turned off his desk light and stood. 

“Grab your jacket,” Kitty advised. “It’s really windy outside.” Bobby noted they were dressed in windbreakers themselves, and went into the closet for his fisherman’s sweater. 

As they headed down the stairs, Lance looked around like a thief and whispered to them, “Let’s get out without anyone seeing us, okay? We don’t want witnesses.” Bobby and Kitty gave each other worried glances but did as they were told. 

As they crossed the lawn, the wind was whipping the trees around and shaking the first of the fall leaves loose. 

“Shit,” Lance muttered. “I hope it’s not too windy to do this.” Once they got to the gazebo, they discovered that it was relatively sheltered by the hedges that surrounded it. They sat close, Kitty and Bobby looking expectantly at their dark-haired friend. Lance reached into his jacket and pulled out a little wrapped case, which he opened on his lap. Inside, Bobby saw rolling papers, a lighter, and a clear plastic bag containing dried leaves. He was about to say something, but Lance spoke first. “Don’t freak, kids. Papa Lance knows what he’s doing.” He started rolling a joint with practiced ease. 

Like a comedy act, Bobby and Kitty both stared bug-eyed at the grass and then, in unison, turned worried eyes to each other. 

Kitty spoke first. “Lance, I don’t know if this is a good idea…” 

“Relax,” he answered, clearly getting a kick out of making them nervous. “The wind’s blowing away from the mansion; no one will smell a thing. Besides, the telepaths aren’t on alert 24/7. That’s what you told me, Bob, right?” 

Bobby shrugged. “No, they’re not, but still… if we get caught —” 

“Then what?” Lance insisted. “They’re not about to toss out any of their precious mutant stars just for some teenage shenanigans. And besides, I bet Charlie was a total stoner back in the day. You can tell he got funky back in the 60s.” Bobby thought of the posters in the music room as Lance held up his finished joint and inspected it carefully. He reached for the lighter. A spark in the night, and a flame that fluttered like a moth for a second before being extinguished by the wind. “Shit. Here, get close you guys. Shelter it.” They huddled together, knees and shoulders bumping, and Bobby felt like he had crossed some line; it was too late to chicken out. 

Lance managed to light up the second time, and he took a long, happy toke, his eyes closed in delight. “Oh, man,” he moaned. “I needed that.” He looked up at Bobby. “You smoke up before, Big Bob?” 

“Yeah!” he answered, a bit too eagerly. 

Kitty looked surprised. “You _did?_ I don’t believe it!” 

“Well, it was just once. After a dance last year…” Kitty rolled her eyes. 

Lance snorted, “Oh, don’t act so pure, Kitty-Cat. You told me you used to sneak into your backyard every night with your pack of Camel Lights.” Bobby snickered at that. 

Kitty got pissed. “Laugh it up, Bobby. At least I won’t cough!” She reached for the joint and took a few baby tokes. 

Lance beamed. “Don’t puff. Take it in deep and hold it. Right. As long as you can.” 

Kitty held it for ten seconds before letting go a cloud of resinous smoke in a fit of coughing. 

Lance put a comforting hand on her back, and Bobby asked, “Are you okay?” 

She replied by handing him the joint and defiantly tossing her hair in triumph. Bobby stared at the object in his hand and then gave a quick, worried look back at the mansion. 

“C’mon, Big Bob,” Lance urged. “Before it goes out.” 

Bobby brought the joint to his lips, realizing that it had already touched both Kitty’s and Lance’s. He took a little puff, coughing right away, and looked up at them. They were watching him intently. He took a braver toke, sucking in more and more, listening to Lance softly coaching in a deep voice: “That’s it, man, no sweat. Just take in the good smoke… gonna make you feel like a king… that’s my bro…” until a cough tore through him and broke the trance. Bobby’s throat was raw as he handed the joint back to Lance, but he felt better now. Braver. As the joint circled around and around again, Bobby felt like he had passed a test… like he had been granted membership in their club. 

Twenty minutes later (at least that’s what his watch told him — it felt like _hours!_ ) the cold was getting to them, so Lance tucked the packet into his coat and they stumbled across the lawn, laughing at the statues in the garden that suddenly seemed extremely pompous. They were all but hanging off each other as they approached the front steps, and Lance turned to them, madly shushing with a finger to his lips. “Shh! Shh! Get it together, people! We have to get upstairs without being too obvious.” 

They all snapped into a more rigid posture, though still clumped together like an amoeba, and moved with serious faces through the foyer and up the stairs, passing Neal and Terry, who gave them a strange look. 

“Hello, fellow students, how are you this evening?” Kitty asked with extreme formality, which caused the stoned trio to break into hysterical laughter. 

“Come on,” Lance yelled and they raced together up the final flight, down the corridor and into the boys’ room where they collapsed on Lance’s bed in a hyperventilating heap, their very laughter fueling more hilarity. 

Bobby suddenly looked concern. “Do you think we got away with it?” There was a moment’s pause before gales of laughter tore through them again and they clutched each other for support, finally collapsing with Lance on the bottom, Kitty tucked up in one of his armpits and Bobby with his head on the pillow and legs over Lance’s. 

“Oh my God,” Kitty declared, “This is, this is the weirdest thing ever… it’s like my toes are really, really far away!” She wiggled them. “And my nose is, like, itching!” Lance reached over and scratched it. 

Lance ran his fingers through her hair as she continued. “Do you ever stop and think just how _disconnected_ we are from each other?” she asked. “But now, now I totally see how humanity is all _linked_ in so many ways…” Bobby got to his feet, stumbling a bit before heading across the room to their bar-fridge where he grabbed a big jug of orange juice. 

Kitty continued with her epiphany as he swigged deeply. “Connected through the air we breathe and the earth we walk on. Through _history_ and _culture_ … And love! Oh my god, totally through all this _love_ that is shared by all humans!” 

Lance stroked the side of her face and smiled. “And mutants? Mutants, too?” 

She turned to him and grabbed his head in both hands, staring into his eyes. “But don’t you see? We’re all the same! Here in this world! Mutants, humans…” she paused a second for thought as Bobby sat back down on the bed behind her. “And, um, monkeys and iguanas and, and all the trees!” 

Bobby giggled and swallowed more juice, looking over at Kitty and Lance whose faces were inches away from each other. Lance put a hand on the back of her head and brought their lips together for a moment. Bobby watched dumbly, a drop of orange juice falling from his lower lip to the bed. 

She climbed up on Lance’s lap, knees straddling him, and began kissing his neck and jaw. Lance took her face in two large hands and kissed her mouth again. After only a few gentle touches of their lips, Kitty threw her arms around Lance and moaned, the sound of kisses becoming moist and hungry, the tone of her sighs urgent. 

Bobby was watching this happen with a kind of wonder. He felt no self- consciousness at all; just a tingling as the sights, sounds and smells of love flooded his senses. Kitty opened her eyes and saw him there. She pulled back from Lance’s kiss and leaned over to reach Bobby. They smiled at each other and then kissed without shame, Lance stroking her hair and pulling it aside to kiss the back of her neck. Bobby felt like he was falling through space, aware only of shifting bodies and hands, of Lance pulling Kitty’s sweater up and off, of her hands brushing by his (Bobby’s) chest (or was that Lance’s hand?). Bobby looked up to see that Lance was behind Kitty, naked from the waist up, his hands snaking up under her t-shirt. Kitty moved in slow motion, like seaweed. Bobby lay back like it was all a dream, like it was a movie, his own hand running under his shirt and sweater in sympathy, stroking his nipples, his dick achingly hard. 

Kitty’s mouth was open, her breath growing faster as Lance caressed and kissed her, making slow, circling progress towards her breasts, lifting her t-shirt carefully over her head so as not to break the trance of her passion. Transfixed by the show, Bobby watched her expression change from deep peace, to a kind of twisted torment, and then her eyes popped opened and she saw him looking up at her. As if waking from a deep slumber and finding herself in a scary, unknown place, she grimaced and covered her breasts, pushing Lance’s hands off. 

Lance seemed to waken slowly to her change in mood and murmured, “Wha’s wrong, baby?” 

“No,” she was mumbling, “Let go… get off… I don’t feel good. Got to…” all the while pulling herself from his embrace as from a thicket into which she had fallen. Things seemed to be happening too fast for Bobby’s brain to keep up with. Like jump cuts, like a sequence of still photos, he saw her standing, then on her knees grabbing her sweater and shirt, then pushing Lance back onto the bed as he tried to rise. Then he saw her running across the room, holding the discarded clothing in front of her breasts and phasing out through the door. 

“Shit,” Lance cried, getting to his feet, his erection tenting his baggy jeans. “What happened?” 

“She freaked out,” Bobby heard himself say from his corner of the bed. He giggled again. 

“No!” Lance cried in frustration. “We were totally gonna get it on!” Shirtless, aroused, he moved towards the door. “I’m going after her!” 

“Dude!” Bobby called after him. “You can’t! Where are you going?” 

“To her room, man!” He was holding his shirt, trying to figure out how it went on. 

“Dude!!” Bobby said again with a weird sense of _déja vu_ , “Think about it… Her roommate can turn into a _wolf!_ ” 

Lance looked at him with an incomprehension that quickly turned to frustration. He dropped the shirt, staggered back to the bed and let himself fall into it, his ass landing on Bobby’s legs. Bobby cried out in pain and then laughed. 

“Fuck,” Lance moaned. “Bitch left me with blue balls.” He turned to Bobby and shot him a look he couldn’t identify. 

“What?” Bobby asked. 

Never taking his eyes off Bobby’s, Lance grabbed the orange juice bottle, took a swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Yo, Big Bob, you ever get off with a guy?” 

 

*** 

 

The thumping sound entered Barrow’s dream as the sound of a hammer driving thick nails into stout beams. Standing on the hard, dry dirt of the empty lot in Pensacola, Florida, he looked up at his father who was high on a ladder, building their home. 

“John, a man needs a trade,” his father called down to him. “An honest living.” 

“I’m gonna be a soldier, daddy,” Barrow yelled back, trying to find some pride in the statement. 

His father laughed derisively. “Oh yeah? You gonna be a killer? It takes no skill to kill, boy!” Grinning, he lifted his strong arm high in the air and hurled the hammer straight at Barrow’s head. 

Barrow awoke with a start. It took a second to figure out that the sound which had woken him was someone pounding on the door. He looked at his little alarm clock, and saw it was just coming up on midnight. He sat up on his mattress and pulled on his worn khakis, calling out, “Hold on, I’m coming,” even though he knew he couldn’t be heard out front. 

Turning on the light in the diner, he saw the kid’s face pressed against the glass. He got the key from under the counter and opened the door. Letting in a blast of cold wind as he entered, John squeezed past him, not looking up. 

Barrow watched him disappear into the back room. He could hear the sound of the coat being shucked off. 

“You want some coffee, Big John?” he called out sleepily but there was no answer. He sighed, closing and locking the door against the windy night. He hung up the key, turned off the diner lights, and returned to his mattress. He lay there a minute, listening to John across the floor jerking his body around to find a comfortable position. “Good night, Big John,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you came back.” When no answer came he repeated, a little louder, “Good night.” 

The rustling stopped. After a brief silence, the kid responded in a surprisingly gentle voice, “I’m working with you tomorrow, okay?” 

Barrow smiled to himself and lay his head down. “That’s a relief, Big John. Thanks.” 

He slept soundly after that. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby felt like he had fallen through a hole in the earth into another world. It looked like his dorm room in the mansion, but it was really more like the secret dreams he had nightly — the ones he never really admitted to later on. 

At Lance’s urgent urgings, he was now dressed only in his white boxers and sitting beside his roommate on his bed, their backs propped against the wall. Lance was smoothing his palms along the material of his navy blue boxer briefs, one hand on either side of the substantial hump of his erection, pulling the material tightly over it. Transfixed by the sight of his own arousal, he lifted his hips off the bed and posed. “Fuck, Bobby,” he murmured, “Doesn’t that look awesome?” 

Bobby stared stupidly at the display, his hand on his own tented boner. “Yeah,” he managed, his mouth dry again. 

Lance dropped his ass back on the bed and hunched forward, massaging his dick through the material with long strokes of his palm. “Damn, a girl like Kitty totally gets me going,” he said achingly. “Smart, slim, just round enough…” 

“Uh-huh,” Bobby panted, not knowing what he was supposed to do next, what he was supposed to say. His dick was aching to be stroked, but he didn’t know the etiquette of a situation like this. 

Lance looked at him, his eyes a bit wild. “Let’s show them off, huh?” Bobby nodded and they both lifted their butts this time, sliding the underwear down, kicking them off their feet, Bobby still in his white socks. 

“Oh, man, _nice_ , Bob!” and Lance reached out and grabbed Bobby’s dick, squeezing it and hefting it like he was considering a melon in a market. “You got some good thickness happening.” Bobby reached his hand halfway towards Lance, but then hesitated. “Yeah, get a hold, man, feel a real hard dick!” He took Bobby’s poised hand and put it on him. 

Bobby felt like he was going to pass out from the intensity. The feeling was so strange and so familiar at the same time. He probably couldn’t even calculate the number of hours he’d had his hands on his own penis in the last four years, but this one belonged to someone else, someone strong and confident and everything he doubted he was himself. And this cock felt hot like fire under his hand, precum drooling down from the pointed head and making the ride smoother. And as he jacked this cock-that-wasn’t-his, Bobby was making the sexy guy sprawled next to him moan in a way that both embarrassed and thrilled him. He felt powerful. 

“Oh fuck,” Lance said through clenched teeth, sounding like he was being tortured just right. “I love her tits, you know?” Bobby looked up surprised, his rhythm faltering for a second. “Yo, keep it up, bro! Yeah, you know what I mean? Not too big, but such a sweet curve in that little flowery bra. Man!” A tremor went through Lance, and the bed suddenly shook a bit as his dick gave up more precum which dripped and pooled in his tight abs. Bobby heard himself make a high, whining moan. 

Lance smiled at him with a glassy twinkle of delight in his eye, and the bed stopped shaking. He pushed Bobby’s hand off his penis and moved closer until their hips were touching. Lance spit on his right hand and reached over to begin jerking Bobby with agonizing slowness. Bobby tried to use his left hand to reciprocate, but Lance cooed, “Relax, man!” and pushed Bobby back against the wall while his hand slid up and down Bobby’s now slick pole. 

Bobby clenched his eyes tight, and the stoned feeling which had worn off, returned to fog his head. He could feel the ice churn in his veins, yearning for escape. 

“You got big nuts, too, Big Bob,” Lance was saying somewhere near his ear, “Bet they’re gonna give up a lot of juice.” 

Bobby’s eyes flew open and he said something that sounded like, “yeahno-uhyeahgonnaFUCK!itsGUHguhGUH…” and he blew, semen shooting one, two, three, four times across his torso, the strongest jet hitting his jaw, and ice flowed out from under his clench hands which were holding the covers in a death grip. 

Then Lance was suddenly above him, holding himself up with one hand and jacking himself hard with the other, grunting through clenched teeth, “Yeah, gonna fuck her hot pussy! Fuck her! Fuck! FUCK!” and ejaculating a thick volley of cum onto Bobby’s already striped chest and stomach, the bed actually jumping in the air twice from the tremor he let loose. 

They froze there, panting. Bobby felt like he had been hit by a truck. Then suddenly there came a pounding on the wall and Sam’s muffled voice yelling, “Hey! We’re trying to sleep here!” 

Bobby was mortified, but Lance just pounded back and yelled, “Shut up!” A huge belly laugh broke from him and he dropped to the bed, landing in a pile of ice. “Ahh! Shit, Bobby!” He sprang up and loped over to Bobby’s bed on the other side of the room which he dropped into with exaggerated relief. “I’m sleeping here tonight. You can sleep in the icy one!” He looked up with a grin that broadened when he saw Bobby’s stunned expression. He grabbed a towel off the floor and threw it at Bobby. “Here, clean off with this, man.” 

Still stunned, Bobby wiped himself, the strong tang of their semen thick in his nostrils. He had no idea what to say. Again, he found himself in a social situation his mother’s training hadn’t prepared him for. But Lance seemed totally relaxed. He pulled the covers — Bobby’s covers — over himself and yawned. “Damn, I’m tired. ’Night, bro. Sweet dreams.” 

Bobby stood awkwardly, catching in his a hand a last drop of cum that leaked from his penis. He swept the melting ice off the bed and wiped it as best he could with his t-shirt before crossing the room to turn out the overhead lights. He stood in the darkness for a minute, listening to the sounds of Lance’s even breathing. He was already asleep. Bobby lingered by the door, disoriented, like he had just arrived in a new country where everything was different. He touched himself. He had never thought of his testicles as large before. Nothing, nothing was the same as it had been when the evening began. He crossed the room in the dark, and lay down in that strange bed that smelled of Lance Alvers. 


	12. Two Small Rooms, Part 2

The next afternoon, Xavier asked Bobby to stay behind after class. It was only then that Bobby realized just how distracted he’d been throughout the Professor’s English Lit lecture. It had never been a big subject for him and his mind frequently drifted off, but today he wasn’t even sure which book they were studying. 

“Robert,” the Professor began gently. “I wish to speak to you about last night.” Bobby’s heart started racing. Images of him and Lance leaped to the forefront of his mind even as he worked to implement the psychic blocking techniques Xavier had taught him. 

The Professor’s eyebrows rose for just a second before he restored his face to neutral, cleared his throat and continued his speech. “Last night I sensed certain erratic mental patterns which led to me to investigate further.” Bobby wanted to die. He began rehearsing excuses: _It wasn’t really what it looked like! It was just experimenting! We’re just horny teens, not —_

“In general,” Xavier continued, “I believe our country’s obsessive vilifying of marijuana to be a hypocritical waste of energy…” The gears of Bobby’s mind shrieked horribly as he realized what they were actually talking about. “However, in the context of a school for young mutants — powerful mutants who are just learning to control potentially destructive powers — I’m afraid we have to draw a hard line on the use of alcohol and recreational drugs. The consequences of any loss of judgment could easily be fatal.” 

Bobby’s mouth worked spasmodically, but no words came out. He could suddenly smell his rank armpits and feel the cool air drying the sweat on his forehead. 

He heard the Professor’s words as if from far away. “I have chosen to forego involving Scott in this incident because, frankly, I fear he might overreact. And furthermore, I would like to ask for your help in enforcing this policy. You are respected by the student body, and I am sure words of sensible caution will have more effect coming from you than from the code of conduct documentation. Do you think you can help me with that?” 

“Yes, Professor,” Bobby managed in a tight voice. “Professor… we didn’t mean any harm —” 

“Yes, yes, I know Robert, and I know you won’t let me down again. I leave it to you to speak to your fellow… perpetrators. I’m sure Ms. Pryde will be suitably chastised just knowing she was caught. Your roommate, I fear, might be harder to convince; but perhaps the two of you have an understanding?” 

Bobby blushed mightily and left as quickly as he could. He walked out into the hallway, absently returning Roberto’s greeting, and headed towards the rec room. There he planned to spend some quiet time with a snowboarding magazine his mother had sent him. It was typical of his mother’s timing that she should uncharacteristically send him a care package at precisely the moment when he didn’t even want to think about her. He felt like she was watching him. Her son the stoner, her son the — 

He stopped short as he entered the rec room. Curled up on the far sofa were Lance and Kitty, their heads bent earnestly together in intimate discussion. They seemed very serious, but Lance’s hand was stroking her hair and she wasn’t moving away. If any bad feelings had come between them last night, they were clearly trying to work through them. Bobby felt like he should be glad, but he wasn’t quite. 

Kitty looked up at him and smiled. “Hey, Bobby, come and join us.” Bobby looked at Lance who looked back a little annoyed and mouthed “no.” 

“Nah, it’s okay, Kitty,” Bobby answered in a chipper voice. “I’ve got stuff to take care of.” 

He looked back at Lance one more time, but he was already burying his face in Kitty’s hair, whispering in her ear. Bobby turned quickly and left. He didn’t know what to think of the events of last night. 

Later that evening, he sat on his bed studying and awaiting Lance’s inevitable return. Bobby became more and more apprehensive, wondering if his roommate would be cold towards him, look down on him — as if last night’s incident had been his fault. Maybe it had been. 

But then at 10:00, Lance burst in, kicking off his shoes and declaiming a rap into Bobby’s face, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him back and forth to the beat until Bobby couldn’t help but laugh. 

“You had a good evening with Kitty, I assume?” Bobby managed through his laughter. 

“God, that is one awesome chick!” Lance declared, falling onto the narrow bed beside Bobby who was pushed up against the wall by the boy’s broad shoulders. “You try to be all smooth and suave and she sees right through it. Smacks you right down. But you also know she’s digging it, right?” He lay his head back on Bobby’s pillow. “I want her so bad.” 

Bobby, propped up on one elbow, looked down at Lance’s oh-so-close body, his heart beating faster. “So, um, you didn’t get any?” 

“No! She’s not going to make it easy.” He lay back down. “And damn, do I want it. You kissed her, right?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Bobby replied warily. 

“Bet you got as hard as I do.” Lance started rubbing his crotch. Bobby’s mouth went dry. It was happening again. Lance looked across at Bobby again, his eyes half-closed. “Why don’t you put away the textbooks for a while, dude.” 

 

*** 

 

Two weeks at the diner was enough to make John wish he’d never see a burger again, or hear the whiny voice of that overstuffed bitch who came every day at 12:15, complaining that the fries were soggy and asking him for the thousandth time if he was ready to accept Jesus Christ into his heart. 

On the other hand, he felt lighter and freer than he had since he and his mom had lived together in the little railroad flat above the dry cleaners in Syracuse. Everyday, she’d promise him she would get them a better life, and he had always repeated, “Everything’s fine like this, Mom! Really!” Then she had met _him_ , the calamitous asshole, and everything had gone to shit — had stayed shit for so long that John had forgotten that “light” and “free” had ever existed. But now, despite the tedium and the fatigue, he was damned if he could think of anywhere he’d rather be than in this piece of shit diner with Barrow and gallons of grease. 

It was a sunny afternoon in early October and John was taking pride in the way the warming beams came in through the freshly washed windows. It had been his idea and his alone to attack the yellow filth that coated them, and he had stuck to it stubbornly, swearing like he was wrestling an alligator, until they gleamed. Barrow had cheered and whistled as John rubbed his aching forearms, He smirked back at his boss as if it weren’t a big deal, but his chest swelled with pride at the praise. 

The lunch hour rush and cleanup were over, and John was typing on a shiny little laptop computer that was open in front of him on the counter. Barrow’s friend had dropped off the machine that morning. He didn’t trust his sketchy housemates and wanted Barrow to look after it for him while he went out of town for the week. Barrow had told John he was allergic to computers, but John had been really excited and had even figured out he could scam some wireless bandwidth from their neighbors. Standing at the counter, fingers typing fluidly, he was making notes for a story. With growing excitement he began to wonder if he could write a whole novel in the one week he had access to the machine. People did that! He’d heard of it! 

He was daydreaming of the fantasy glamor of having his finished novel in his hands, when the door slammed open with more force than was necessary. He turned, about to give whoever it was a piece of his mind (“Hey! You gonna pay for that if you break it?!”) when he saw who it was who had just come in: Chisel, the loud, brainless jerk who used to taunt him during his time in Keever’s gang. There he was, bragging and blustering along with two other guys, one of whom John didn’t know, and the other who had joined the gang shortly before the night John left. Also known as the night Pyro, the fire mutant had turned Nikkatyne into a human bonfire in front of two gangs. 

As if he’d been clipped in the knees, John dropped to the floor behind the counter, scuttling like a crab deep into the niche beside the garbage can. He heard Chisel shout, “Hey! Can we get some fucking service here?” John’s heart was pounding, but he realized that he had not been seen. Just then Barrow emerged from the backroom, having taken the garbage out back through the fire exit. He looked annoyed at the ruckus and looked around for John. When he caught sight of him cowering under the counter, his eyebrows raised a bit, and John threw him a pleading look, holding a silencing finger to his lips. Barrow looked up at the gang members, his face neutral. 

“What can I get you boys?” he asked, as John crawled slowly around his feet and, shaking, making his way along the floor and into the backroom. He listened to the sound of the exchange out front, not hearing the words, just the way Chisel spat everything with pointless contempt, and Barrow coolly replied. John was on his feet, grabbing his portfolio, his clothes — including the new ones he had bought with his first wages — and stuffing them in a big plastic bag. He ran to the end of the room and pulled open the heavy fire escape door, squinting into the light and making ready to run. 

“Hey!” came a voice behind him, and his heart thudded almost painfully. He turned and saw Barrow in the doorway to the backroom. The older man crossed the space quickly until he was standing right over John. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and whispered, “I’ll get rid of them; you come back in a few hours.” He paused, probing John’s eyes with concern. “Don’t you be running away on me, Big John.” 

Reluctantly, John dropped his meager bag of possessions to the floor. Barrow held the fire escape door open while John slipped out, and then closed it behind him with a crash. John leaned against the dirty brick. He let out a low moan and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. _Fuck! Fuck!_ he thought. _Why did I put down the damn bag?_ All he wanted was to run and keep running until everything was behind him: the city, the gang, every trick he’d turned and, most of all, the fire — the terrible fire he had lit that night, the great grotesquery of Nikkatyne burning, screaming. The memory had returned with Chisel; it was right there in front of his closed eyes. The panic threatened to overwhelm him and he opened his eyes to ground himself again in reality. He was here in the alley behind the diner. He was with Barrow. He wanted to run, but he wasn’t going to betray this man who trusted him, who believed he was somebody. 

His heart in his throat, he moved through the alleyway to the street, looking left towards the door of the diner to make sure the coast was clear, and then turning right and running as fast as he could down the sidewalk, not stopping until he was many blocks away. 

 

*** 

 

Day by day, the relationship between Kitty and Lance had deepened, much to the delight of the school’s gossip mill which had precious little grain to grind. The couple was demonstrative, serious, and living in their own world of meaningful looks and barely-concealed make-out sessions. 

Bobby, however, had a unique perspective on the whole thing. When Lance was training or otherwise occupied, Kitty would grab Bobby for walks, pouring out her heart, her worries, and her hopes in long, neurotic monologues, asking him questions she didn’t give him the time to answer. “Do you think he’s right for me? Is he just after my body or does he respect me? Is it too early for me to be in love?” 

Then came the evenings which were exponentially more baffling. The Kitty and Lance soap opera would begin somewhere on the grounds, the passion carefully restricted by Kitty to the lips and not much below. Then Act Two would follow in the boys’ dorm where Lance would come back, inflamed, and find relief with Bobby, moaning out his fantasies about the fabulous, maddening, uptight girl even as he taught Bobby’s body to sing songs it had never even heard of before. This routine had gone on for two weeks now, and Bobby didn’t want to think about the future. In fact, not thinking about it seemed to work as his best all around coping method. 

In addition to acting as the object of a popular student’s affection, Lance was earning other reputations at school. Half of the student body found him to be prickly and unapproachable, and the other half thought he was funny and cool. He was generally recognized as the one most likely to have friction with the teachers, and some students were already taking bets on how long he’d last before quitting or being thrown out. 

Nothing could get Kitty angrier than attacks on Lance (perceived or real) and she often leaped to his defense. She expected Bobby to be right there in the fray with her and was sort of disappointed when he held back. Bobby understood her frustration, but he was reluctant to seem too worried about Lance’s fate. 

Lance’s reaction to all this notoriety was to preen and clown for the students who liked him, and grow hostile to those who didn’t. He ignored Kitty’s suggestions that he strive to make as much peace around himself as possible, especially with the teachers. 

“He’s too proud,” she cried in frustration to Bobby as they left math class at 4:00. “He’ll never take my advice! Hey, you want to grab a snack?” 

“No, I’ve got powers training with Scott,” he responded, “and so does Lance.” 

“Shit, I forgot. It’s ‘shooters and shakers’ today.” She looked nervous. “Can you try and help him keep his cool? He hates that class so much.” 

“Don’t you think I know that? Who gets to hear him bitch every night?” 

“He’s just scared, Bobby. He doesn’t like things he can’t control.” 

“He can’t control you,” Bobby pointed out. She smiled and, amazingly, blushed. 

The class of six gathered thirty minutes later in the pit, dressed in their X-sweats. “Shooters and shakers” was the nickname given to the group of students with emittive powers (“blasting shit to pieces,” as Sam liked to say), namely Roberto, Neal, Terry, Sam, Bobby and Lance. It was less of a grab bag than Kitty’s class (phasing, language acquisition, psychic imagery, lycanthropy, turning to metal, electronic interfacing), and Scott emphasized ways they could use similar techniques and coach each other in harnessing their destructive potentials. 

They began with breathing and focusing exercises before taking turns attempting individually-designed trials. The theme of the day was using your powers in a more controlled way and preventing sudden spikes. Sam (whose mutation had profoundly accelerated the healing of his broken arm) had to launch himself without overshooting the flag Scott had raised to 20 feet. Terry had to use her voice to shatter a brick placed on wooden platform without shattering the glasses that sat on adjoining platforms. 

Then it was Lance’s turn. He rose slowly from his place on the ground as if it were his decision and no one was waiting on him. He pushed the hair out of his face and watched Scott setting up the platform with more oddball objects. 

Roberto called out, “Don’t worry, Lance! You doing it good today.” Lance nodded with the curt snap of his head, and raised his fists in the air. He reminded Bobby of a boxer before a match. 

Scott finished and stepped aside, revealing three eggs balanced on top of a short wooden stand. “Lance, I just want you to concentrate on activating your powers and keeping them at their lowest level. I want to see the platform shaking, but I do not want the eggs to fall.” 

“Jeez, Mr. Summers,” Lance quipped. “At the carnival they glue them down so you can’t win the stuffed panda.” 

“These aren’t glued, Lance,” Scott replied calmly. “Just do your best.” 

Bobby watched anxiously as Lance took a wide-legged stance ten feet from the platform. He clenched and unclenched his fists and shook out his shoulders, breathing deeply and audibly, his brows tensed in concentration. Bobby called out to him, “Just stay cool.” 

Neal added, “Just imagine your power as a wave on the ocean, rolling into the beach like —” 

“Quiet!” Lance barked back, a bead of sweat appearing on his forehead. His hand turned into an inverted claw and he clenched his teeth. The earth began to move under them, and Bobby put a hand out to steady himself. The platform was visibly moving and the eggs were wobbling back and forth. No one breathed. 

“Steady,” Scott coached. “Keep it going just like that.” 

Bobby could see Lance was struggling; he was dripping with sweat and hunching over like a gorilla ready to charge. He let out a fierce growl that caught everyone by surprise, and the oscillations increased, the eggs swinging back and forth, closer to the edge. 

A wicked smile crossed Sam’s lips and he muttered to Terry, “Oh my god! What was that?” 

With a cackle she responded, “It’s your brother!” 

They looked at each other and said in unison, “The Betrayers! They’re already inside!” Bobby didn’t know what piece of pop trivia they were quoting, but he wanted to blast them with hoarfrost. 

“Pipe down, you two,” Scott snapped. “Lance, slow your breathing, relax your muscles, regain control.” 

But it was too late. With another cry, Lance raised his fists in the air, and a huge wave of tectonic energy shot through the ground, not only knocking off the eggs, but bringing down the platform and tipping most of the class over. The tremors stopped abruptly. Lance turned and stormed off to the edge of the group, dropping on his ass and bringing his head down to his knees, his hands coming up to squeeze his temples. 

Scott came over and crouched beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Does your head hurt?” 

Lance’s muffled voice responded, “Yes,” but he didn’t look up. 

“That was good work, Lance. You held on for at least 15 seconds, that’s better than —” 

Lance’s head shot up, and Bobby winced because his roommate was furious. “Good work?! What was fucking good work? My scrambled eggs?!” 

Scott got to his feet and said a bit sternly, “Okay, you have to calm down. That’s part of your problem. If you can’t control your temper, you won’t be able to control your powers.” Bobby looked resentfully at Scott. 

Lance jumped to his feet, wincing from his headache. He was taller than Scott by a few inches and got right up in his face. “My problem is you acting so smug, like this is easy and I’m a loser if I can’t do it!” 

Bobby wanted to jump in and say something, but he was afraid to move. It was Neal who said, “No one called you a ‘loser’ except you, Lance.” 

“Fuck off,” Lance spat at him. He turned and walked away, climbing out of the pit. Bobby got to his feet and ran after him, scrambling up the grassy incline. 

“Bobby, let him go,” Scott called after him. “He has to take responsibility for his own actions.” Bobby stopped at the edge and looked back down at the class who were all watching him. He looked again at Lance’s retreating figure and, in the distance, he could see Kitty coming towards him. Had she just been waiting for class to end, or was she standing by in case of this exact outcome? 

Bobby stayed behind after class to help Scott clean up. He was waiting for the right time to say what he was thinking, but he wasn’t ready yet. 

“You did well today, Bobby,” Scott told him as he took down the flag from the pole. Bobby felt a swell of pride. On command, he had changed the texture of his ice blasts from hard pellets to wet sleet to a light dusting of snow. He had found a kind of channel inside himself from which he could just let the energy flow. Then he could use his conscious mind to adjust it. Scott told him that someday he’d be able to instantly build ice slides that he could swoop down, as if he were spontaneously designing his own snowboard runs. 

Bobby thought about this and about the future it implied. Adventure. Purpose. Then he thought about Lance and wondered what would happen to him if he couldn’t succeed at the school. He stopped cleaning up and just stood there until Scott turned around to look at him. “Is something wrong, Bobby?” 

“Don’t you think…” he began, and then decided to start over. “Do you think, um, that’s the best way to talk to Lance when he’s having trouble?” 

Scott paused before asking, “What do you think I’m doing wrong?” There were times when Bobby wished he could see Scott’s eyes, because at moments like this he had no idea what his teacher was thinking. 

Bobby felt very uncomfortable giving Scott advice, but he had started, so he went for it. “It’s just that his ego is pretty fragile. As soon as something doesn’t go right, he gives up on it, you know? Like, he’s really awesome in history, and so he works hard in that class. But he doesn’t understand calculus so he never does his homework.” 

“Yes, I’ve noticed that. What do you think we should do differently?” 

Bobby hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. “Uh, well, I don’t know… praise him more or understand his frustration…” 

Scott was silent for a minute and Bobby could see he was taking his words seriously; but then he shook his head. “Look, Lance is 17 years old. It’s about time he learned that he can’t control people through tantrums. He’s surrounded by other students who have their own problems; but they’re moving forward and not looking for special treatment.” 

“That’s just it, Scott. I think _he_ thinks he’s not as good as the rest of us.” Bobby hadn’t realized this until he said it out loud, and it shook him up a bit. Confident Lance was more scared than he was. That was why he never came to the peer discussions — he didn’t dare open up that much. 

Scott came over and put an arm around Bobby’s shoulder, leading them out of the pit and back towards the mansion. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I can’t afford to spend more energy coddling Lance at the expense of the other students. He has lots of support from everyone; all he has to do is ask. If he’s determined to go it alone, that’s his decision.” 

Bobby said nothing and spent dinnertime and the rest of the evening thinking about his role in Lance’s secret life. He and Kitty both wanted Lance to succeed. They both believed in him. Was he doing everything he could to help? Was he the one taking advantage? 

It was after 9:30 and Lance and Kitty had not returned from wherever they were on the grounds. Bobby kept going downstairs to check for them and then returning to the dorm room to study. He was trying to write a sociology paper but was actually spending more time IM’ing with Mike.  


_Bcube says: (9:46:16 PM) When did you meet her?_  
 _Haddaddah says: (9:46:22 PM) Summer at the mall. I really like hr a lot. But she_  
 _has a TEMPER!_  
 _Bcube says: (9:46:30 PM) Uh-oh_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:46:45 PM) We fought first week of school but we made up_  
 _Bcube says: (9:46:16 PM) Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww… kyoot!_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:47:02 PM) Yeah, yeah, blahblah_  
 _Bcube says: (9:47:17 PM) What did u fight about?_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:47:25 PM) I got in trouble with Matthews about something_  
 _Bcube says: (9:47:44 PM) Bullshit. you in the principal’s office? mr. model_  
 _student?_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:48:03 PM) Uh-uh, not anymore. Different guy now_  
 _Bcube says: (9:48:12 PM) Bullshit._  
 _Haddadah says: (9:48:30 PM) My hair is hippie-length! Anway, look who’s_  
 _talking. it’s not like you ever got busted._  
 _Bcube says: (9:49:10 PM) No, I’m different too. called in to the headmaster_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:49:27 PM) Bullshit yourself! What did you do wrong?!!_  
 _Bcube says: (9:50:05 PM) Just never mind what I did._  
 _Haddadah says: (9:50:15 PM) Did you cheat on a test?_  
 _Bcube says: (9:50:40 PM) No. got caught smoking up_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:51:03 PM) LOL! Stoner!!!!!_  
 _Bcube says: (9:51:15 PM) Hard to put one over on a telepath._  
 _Haddadah says: (9:51:44 PM) THE BETRAYERS: THEY’RE ALREADY INSIDE!_  
 _Bcube says: (9:52:13 PM) What is that?! someone in class said it too_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:52:36 PM) Made-for-TV horror flick. coming on_  
 _Hallowe’en. Looks cheesy but cool._  
 _Bcube says: (9:52:51 PM) So gf was mad you got in trouble?_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:53:10 PM) uh, yeah, it kind of affected her. I can’t talk_  
 _about it._  
 _Bcube says: (9:53:35 PM) What?!! Huh? WUZZUP?!!! Tell me the big secret._  
 _Haddadah says: (9:54:02 PM) Shit. shouldn’t have said anything. what about_  
 _u? hooked up with anyone?_

The door open and Lance drifted in like a dark cloud. He snapped on his portable stereo and hip-hop came blasting out. Bobby winced because it was a bit late to be playing music that loud. Lance moved to his bed, kicked off his high tops, and lay down without a word, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Hey,” Bobby ventured, raising his voice over the music. “You okay?” 

“Whatever,” Lance offered in return. 

_Bcube says: (9:55:28 PM) Hang on. brb_  
 _Haddadah says: (9:55:46 PM) No, I gotta hit the sack. early day tomorrow_  
 _Bcube says: (9:56:10 PM) k. g’night. tell me about hot chick next time  
_ _Haddadah says: (9:56:28 PM) Jubilee  
_ _Bcube says: (9:56:47 PM)_ _that’s a name? ok more questions. bookmark it. gtg_

Bobby turned in his desk chair and tried to read Lance. Was he asking to be left alone or waiting for Bobby to come and join him? 

There was a loud electronic squawk from the stereo. The music stopped abruptly, and Jones’ voice spoke through the speakers: _“Attention, Attention! This is the noise police. Your crap music is being suspended effective immediately.”_ Bobby and Lance watched as the stereo unit shut itself down. 

Lance gave a single pound on the wall, “Fuck you!” and dropped back on his bed, turning to face the wall. 

Bobby poked at the silence. “You know, you didn’t do so bad in ‘powers’ class. You held it for a while…” 

“God, Drake!” barked Lance’s back, “I’ve had enough of you and Kitty. Fucking give it a rest!” Bobby thought the conversation was over. He turned back to his desk and was about to get down to work when Lance spoke again. “She was really pissed, you know. I don’t blame her. Why bother with me when there are other dudes here. Neal or Sam. Or Peter. Bet she’d go for Peter.” 

“What are you talking about, Lance?” Bobby asked, noticing he wasn’t included in the list. 

Lance turned to him, his face exasperated, hurt, angry. “Add ‘em up, bro! She’s a winner; and winners go with winners!” 

“She digs you, man! You know she does!” Bobby sounded whiny to himself. 

“Yeah and you know why? Because I’m a bad boy. We’re fun for good little chicks like Kitty! But in the end, you gotta go with someone who makes you look good, right? Guys like me are just for fun.” He punched the wall again with a vicious jab that left him rubbing his knuckles. He sat up and put his feet on the floor. He looked forlorn, pathetic and utterly unlike himself. “And fuck me for a fool, Bobby. I think I love her. I fucking love her and I’m gonna fuck it up!” 

Bobby moved across the floor without thinking, grabbing Lance’s upper arms in both hands and shaking him angrily. He didn’t know what he was doing; shaking sense into him? Punishing him? He dug his fingers into the meat of the boy’s biceps with painful intensity and stared at him, their face inches apart. And then Bobby put a knee on the bed in between Lance’s parted thighs and brought his mouth down to kiss him hard on the lips. Lance seemed to resist for a moment before opening his mouth to let Bobby’s tongue in. 

They kissed loudly and wetly, and Bobby’s hand went to Lance’s crotch where he found a fat erection which he massaged forcefully with his palm. Lance broke away from the kiss, turning his head sideways and gasping, “Dammit, Bobby!” as if he were angry. But Bobby suddenly had no fear. He began undoing the buttons of Lance’s shirt and started kissing his way down from the neck, his lips following the expanse of skin that his fingers were revealing. His tongue lapped across the big brown nipple, and he felt the coarse hairs tickle his tongue. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Drake?” Lance murmured, but Bobby didn’t believe he wanted him to stop. Lance’s shirt was open now, and Bobby’s knees were on the floor as he lapped at the treasure trail and ran his tongue in and out of the navel, his hands hanging onto Lance’s side, thumbs on the forward jut of his pelvic bone. 

Bobby sat back on his haunches and brought his shaking hands to Lance’s belt buckle. Breathing hard, he tore at the belt and pants button, hell-bent on his goal. He pulled down the zipper and found a wet spot on the plum-colored boxers. He put his nose and lips against the hard on, kissing the wet spot. He raised his head and looked up defiantly, hungrily at Lance’s amazed face. Lance’s expression was somewhere between carnivorous and frightened as Bobby hooked his hands into his waistband and commanded him, “Lift up.” 

Lance lifted his butt off the bed with his hands, and Bobby pulled the jeans and shorts down. The underwear caught on Lance’s erection for a minute and it was released with a snap on his stomach as Bobby pulled the clothing free of the hairy legs. For the first time since he had crossed the room, Bobby felt a twinge of panic undermining his resolution, but he shook it off and returned to his position between Lance’s legs, taking the hard-on in his shaking hand, stroking it a couple of times, and then lowering his mouth onto the head. 

Bobby had never done this before, though he had curved his lips around many abstractions of dicks in the final moments of his masturbation fantasies. Now, faced with hot reality, he felt there wasn’t actually that much to know. His mouth tasted, sucked, and licked the top half while his hand stroked the base in movements he had perfected over the last weeks. Lance was starting to make deep sounds in his throat and hissing through his teeth. Bobby tasted pre-cum for the first time and it spurred him to move faster, to take more into his throat. Lance was moving his hips now, too, and Bobby choked for a second before realizing he could use the jacking hand to control the depth of penetration. He thought of how Scott called him a good problem-solver. 

Lance’s familiar sex-scent was rising from the pubic hairs beside Bobby’s nose, and it was like the craziest drug in the world, making Bobby crave the gush of semen that was going to come sooner than later, if he knew the pattern of Lance’s breathing. 

“Fuck yeah, Bobby,” Lance was murmuring in a bass rumble, “Take it, suck it.” Bobby realized it was the first time Lance had said his name during sex instead of getting himself worked up with a commentary about Kitty’s tits and pussy. He felt powerful and, as the dick in his mouth thickened, he undid his own pants and awkwardly pulled out his own rock hardness. Jacking them both now, Lance’s dick sliding into a perfect rhythm of invasion, Bobby heard himself moaning around the thick meat as Lance’s breathing got faster. Lance’s hands flew to Bobby’s head and held it still as his penis swelled in Bobby’s fist and jets of semen blew into his mouth and throat, Lance’s cry sounding as full of loss as it was of exultation. 

Bobby felt his own penis explode, and his orgasm surged through him like possession, exaggerating the world around him. He could taste Lance’s essence in his mouth and nose, feel the strong hands in his hair, and hear the sound of semen plopping on the parquet floor; each sensation was magnified, weighty. He dropped his face onto Lance’s thighs as aftershock orgasms continued to wrack his frame. They stayed in that position for a long time before Bobby’s knees started complaining and he lowered himself to the floor, his pants and briefs around his thighs, and the air cooling his exposed, retreating genitals. 

Bobby looked up at Lance who was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed and said, “If Kitty doesn’t want you — and you’re a fool if you think she doesn’t… If _anyone_ doesn’t see your worth, they’re idiots.” Lance said nothing — didn’t even look at him — but rose slowly, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, got his toilet kit, and left for the bathroom. 

“Fuck it,” Bobby said to himself as he looked around for something to clean off with. He chose Lance’s underwear. And when he had wiped the last of the semen from his thighs and lips, he brought the underwear to his nose and inhaled deeply. There was a catch in his breath, but he resolved firmly that he was not going to cry. 

He undressed completely, turned off the overhead light, and climbed into his bed. He would sleep naked tonight, like Lance. Defenseless and defiant. Only Lance’s small bedside lamp still illuminated the room as his roommate returned from the bathroom. He pulled off his sweatpants, tossed them sloppily on the floor and climbed into his own narrow bed. Bobby turned his face to the wall, though his eyes were still open. He felt hot, lost and utterly alone. 

“Bobby,” came Lance’s voice. It was choked and hoarse. Bobby turned over to find his roommate staring at him with a face so drained that Bobby thought he was seeing a ghost. A silence into which ocean liners might disappear before Lance finally whispered, “Good night.” 

They continued to stare at each other. Lance’s eyes drifted closed with fatigue and then popped open to find Bobby still staring. “What?” 

“Maybe I… uh, could I sleep in your bed tonight?” A pause. “I mean with you.” 

“Don’t fag out on me, Drake,” Lance said with finality and rolled over. Soon, he was snoring gently. 

Bobby didn’t say a word. He lay there frozen, thinking he’d never sleep a wink that night — maybe ever — but then his eyes were shutting, too, and he was grateful for the coming oblivion. 

His computer was muted, so he didn’t hear the IM alert noise and didn’t see the message that popped up on his screen: 

_Pyro Pyro Burning Bright says: (10:42:51 PM) Bobby? That you?_  
 _Pyro Pyro Burning Bright says: (10:43:25 PM) Hey, it’s me, John. St. John. Pyro from the youth group thing back in May_  
 _Pyro Pyro Burning Bright says: (10:44:02 PM) You there? Guess you don’t remember me_ . 

 

*** 

 

John stared at the screen and drummed his fingers on his thigh. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor before the borrowed laptop which was perched on his mattress. His face was calm, but his legs were twitching nervously. Nauseous with fear, he had returned to the diner after 5:00, his neck straining constantly as he scanned every corner of the street for gang members. 

Barrow had been cool as usual, not subjecting him to any interrogation about the customers that had frightened him so badly. 

“What if they come back?” John had asked, more to himself. 

Barrow had snorted. “Not likely. I burned their burgers and gave them warm soda.” 

John had smiled despite his tension, feeling a rush of affection for the older man. “Heh. They pay their bill?” 

“Yeah,” Barrow had answered, “but they stiffed me! No wonder you don’t like ‘em!” 

John had felt a bit better, and gratefully made the two of them dinner with his newly emerging culinary skills. As he cooked in the familiar kitchen, he had chided himself for getting so bent out of shape by those losers; but as darkness descended, the fear had returned, and the ghosts from his past seemed to haunt the shadowed corners of the backroom. He had turned on the computer and found that the wireless signal from next door was still working. The Internet, he had decided, would distract him until it was time to sleep. 

He had caught up on six months worth of Dinosaur Comics, and covertly scanned his favorite sites of naked skater dudes when he had thought to IM Bobby. Against all reason and after six months, the earnest little suburban boy still haunted his memory. Bobby still stood, somehow, for safety. 

But that hadn’t worked out, had it? The Messenger window showed Bobby was online, but he wasn’t answering. Probably he didn’t want to talk to the weirdo trouble maker who shoved poems at him and then ran away like a scared girl. Probably next time he logged on, John would find himself blocked. _Fuck it._ It didn’t matter one way or another. 

Barrow had been reading the paper in the diner, and now turned out the lights there and came into the backroom to go to bed. “Good night, Big John,” he muttered as he climbed under the covers. “Don’t stay up too late.” 

John suddenly felt something in his chest and looked up startled. “Hey! You didn’t turn off the pilot light on the stove!” 

Barrow raised his head, maybe to wonder how John knew that. “Nah, there’s something wrong with the regulator. It took me almost fifteen minute to get it going this morning. I called the repair guy, and he said to leave it on and he’ll come tomorrow after we close.” 

“Oh,” John replied, trying to sound calm. “Okay.” A horrible dread took hold of him, mixing with the other miseries already churning in the cauldron of his guts. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. The noises from the street were tortured groans as they came through the high, closed window, and the wind rattled in the exhaust fan. Through this background scrabble came the irritating mutters of the stove, calling out, _“St. John… St. John… let me loose. Let me feed…”_

He ignored it all and opened a new document. He began writing with no clear destination in mind, almost in a trance. Sometimes it was like poetry, sometimes diary… but somewhere, in the dry pile of words, the spark of an idea caught fire. It was just a little piece of fiction about a boy — a boy named Castle — who lived in the shadow of a volcano. It was a short story maybe. He was attended by the sea birds and ruled over the mice who sheltered in his hut from the volcano’s burning spit. And there were others. There were acolytes and jesters. There were warriors on neighboring islands whose spears could reach him when he went down the beach to fish. There were ancient sharks in the frozen depths who had answers to his questions, but would only reveal them for an awful price, paid in flesh and marrow. Clearly, it was many stories, and he began to write lists of names and sketches of scenes that would happen deep into the tale. It was a novel. And it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t nice. And the blood that flowed from the wounds was drunk by the hungry even as the helpless victim lay dying. Because the sentimental didn’t survive where volcanoes rumbled and allies betrayed. 

It was two in the morning when the torrent of ideas stopped flowing. His legs ached from sitting cross-legged, and his fingers were almost numb from typing. He shut down the computer and staggered to his mattress, exhaustion blurring his vision. And as sleep slowly drowned him, visions of his fictional world danced in front of his eyes. Something in him realized that the main character’s castle was the abandoned building where Keever’s gang had lived, and perhaps still did. He could see them moving around him, and from a high window, he could see fire in the courtyard. 

“Sleeeeep, St. John,” murmured the pilot light. 

“Eat me,” he breathed and fell unconscious. 

His sleep was nothing but dreams, as if the fiction button, once pressed, couldn’t be disengaged. Things were just typically surreal and dull until Chisel found him in a huge industrial kitchen. John was alone in the cavernous facility, where the dim light came from pale, humming fluorescents a mile up. He was dicing a huge pile of carrots with a large chef’s knife and trying to be very small and quiet. Chisel’s steps echoed as he approached inexorably, a horrible grin on his face. John pretended not to care and kept cutting, but his anxiety grew as step by step, the enemy approached, taller than he remembered. Monstrously tall. 

Chisel sounded close when he finally spoke. “Keever doesn’t like carrot soup, fuckwad.” John panicked. He had thought the soup would appease. He looked down, and there was no knife in his hand. Chisel had it; he knew that without looking. John turned to face him across the nighttime desert landscape, the air smoky with oil fires. It wasn’t Chisel though, it was his stepfather, swinging the knife through the air with lazy menace. 

“Fuck you!” John screamed at him through his terror. “I got away! You can’t follow me here!” But John was very small and the man towered above him. His stomach was in his throat as his stepfather moved closer, and John dropped to the hard-packed desert floor, curling himself into a tiny ball, waiting for the first blow. Then he realized he wasn’t helpless, not at all! The ground was full of fire, full of fuel. 

He dared to look up at the fat, bald silhouette that rose above him. The man said in a voice like dark toffee, “I want your sweet mouth, Little John,” and John reached with his mind into the corroded pipes and touched the flame, clenching his fist tight in concentration. 

“Not this time,” John growled and released his hand, pulling the fire into the air, making it rise like a wave behind the punishing demon who caught fire and screamed, dropping the belt from his hand. The inferno rose on a limitless supply of underground gas. He was safe, he was unstoppable. 

Something exploded, and John awoke with a start on his mattress; his eyes went wide. The wall behind Barrow was on fire, burning debris already half-covering the unconscious man. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby and Mike were on a new roller coaster at Six Flags called “The Betrayer.” Mike was hollering and grinning as they plunged hundreds of feet straight towards the ground. Bobby was worried, though; it just didn’t feel safe. Rivets popped as they raced around corners, and the structure was shaking as if it would break apart any minute. 

“Isn’t this great?!” Mike screamed over the rush of the wind and the bump of the coaster. 

Bobby looked around frantically and saw the ride was almost empty; he and Mike were in the front car, and way in the back were Lance and Kitty, holding tight to each other. As the ride rounded a particularly tight corner, Bobby saw the last car break free and fly into the air. Lance’s scream cut through the air as the whole ride shook calamitously and began to disintegrate around them. 

He tried to reach for Mike, but they were pitching too wildly, and that was when Bobby realized he was awake in Lance’s bed (and when the fuck had _that_ happened?) experiencing a mutant-made earthquake. His roommate had fallen naked to the floor and was clutching his head, screaming in pain. Books, CDs, the stereo, all were tumbling to the floor, furniture was skittering across the floor out of position and plaster dust was filling the air. 

Bobby could hear people shouting in the rooms around them as they were awoken. He tried unsuccessfully to get to his feet, ending up on all fours on the bed, calling, “Lance! Stop it! You’re going to bring the ceiling down!” Lance rolled on his back, looking up at Bobby through tear-filled eyes that begged for help. Bobby was shaken off the bed, naked, on top of Lance. He grabbed him by the shoulders and shouted, “Look at me! Look me in the eyes. You have to control it!” But Lance seemed to be completely panicked, grabbing onto Bobby like a drowning man. Bobby closed his eyes tight, concentrating through the shaking, through the sound of falling debris, through Lance’s fierce grip, and called with his mind, _*Professor! Help! Wake up! Lance can’t turn off his powers!*_

Bobby felt Xavier’s presence sweep across him, though it came with no words. Lance let go and fell back to the floor with a strangled cry. Bobby opened his eyes and watched his roommate’s internal struggle as the waves of tremors slowed and stopped. Bobby felt nauseous as he staggered to his feet, clearing a path to the door. 

_*Hold on, Bobby,*_ came Jean’s voice in his head. _*I’m on my way!*_

Their door handle shook, but the door couldn’t open because Bobby’s desk had slid in front of it. Peter’s voice called out. “Bobby? Lance?! Stand back; I’m going to break down the door!” 

“Peter, no!” Bobby called, suddenly noticing that he was naked. “I’ll get it!” He grabbed Lance’s bunched up sweatpants and pulled them on — hopping like a stork until he could force his second leg through the tangle — then ran to push the desk out of the way. Lance was on the ground, still holding his head, crying in agony. Small aftershocks shook the room every time a spike of pain went through him. 

“Hang on, Lance! Jean’s coming.” Bobby began pushing the heavy wooden desk (why did he have to have one of the old solid wood desks instead of a light IKEA one?!) while more agitated voices joined Peter’s on the other side of the door. Bobby saw Lance begin to crawl towards his night table, and called out to him between grunts of exertion, “Hey, man, just hold still; help’s on the way!” 

He realized that the desk was being stopped by a pile of fallen books wedged under the legs. He dropped to the ground and pulled them loose. Suddenly Peter was able to move the desk as he pushed the door open. The big Russian squeezed into the room in his pale blue pajamas followed by Sam and Jones. Other students filled the doorway, eyes wide. Bobby could hear more voices approaching as the girls ran in from their wing. Everyone was asking what had happened, and Bobby only then turned around to see Lance curled on the floor, naked, with his cell phone to his ear, weeping like a child and babbling into it, “Mommy, it hurts, please, please help me, Mommy! Make it stop, _please, it hurts!”_

“Stand aside,” Scott yelled out in the corridor and bodies parted to let Jean through, medical kit in hand. 

 

*** 

 

“NO!” John screamed as the realization of what he’d done hit him like a slap. As if it were fate laughing at him, the fire surged high and hot, like a wave ready to break over the unconscious form of Barrow. Screaming, teeth gritted, hand outstretched, John used his powers to push the flame back towards the door to the diner. It was a terrible battle and too much for him, especially with the gas still on, feeding the flames. He staggered across the room to Barrow and, right hand in the air to control the fire, started dragging the heavy, unconscious man towards the back door with his left. His skinny frame strained with the effort. 

He needed to keep the heat off Barrow, needed to get both of them away from the smoke which was pressing down from the ceiling, making him tear up and cough. He could hear the exultation of the fire as it swept through the diner, consuming everything in its path. It was swift and it was brutal, and John knew he could do nothing but save himself and, he prayed, the older man. He pulled the emergency door open and the fresh air fanned the flames higher. Abandoning any attempt to control the inferno, he used both hands to drag Barrow into the alley. He didn’t know if he was alive or dead. 

Sirens sounded in the distance, and John soon realized they were coming his way. He had to leave; couldn’t afford to be caught here, questioned, returned to his family, revealed as a dangerous mutant. “Shit!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, misery tearing him apart. He realized he was weeping. He looked back into the room where the mattresses were burning fiercely. He got on his knees and reached in beside the door. The plastic bag with his belongings, still packed up since yesterday’s abortive escape, was within reach, and he pulled it into the open air. He knelt beside Barrow and put a hand on his chest. “I’m sorry,” he told him though he knew his words weren’t heard. “I just wreck everything. I… I’m sorry.” 

The sirens were close now, and he could hear people shouting in the street. He grabbed the plastic bag and moved to the entrance of the alleyway. A crowd was gathering and a fire truck was turning into the block. It was now or never. He broke cover and ran as he had run the previous afternoon, knowing this time he would not be coming back. 

 

*** 

 

At 5:00 a.m., Bobby and Kitty emerged from the elevator in the lobby. They had finally seen the secret sub-basement, and the glistening science-fiction world had been everything they had imagined. They just didn’t care anymore. They had helped bring Lance to the med-lab where they had watched, terrified as he had been hooked up to futuristic machines, Jean all the while working with him psychically to relieve his headache, and Scott coaching him to subdue his powers. Finally, Lance had grown quiet and the aftershocks had ceased. Bobby and Kitty were gently but surely dismissed. 

The elevator doors closed behind them, and they climbed the stairs silently. Through the windows, Bobby could see that the first hint of dawn changing the autumn skies from black to the purple of a bruise. He walked Kitty to her room. He thought he’d go in and sit with her, but Rahne opened the door, took Kitty by the hand, and led her to her bed. “Thank, Bobby,” she said in her shy, rough voice. “I’ll take care of her.” 

“Okay, Rahne, thanks. Get some sleep, Kitty.” 

Bobby lingered silently in the doorway for another moment, and Kitty looked up at him, her face fatigued but calm. “What about his parents? They already phoned Xavier, didn’t they?” 

“They’re coming tomorrow morning to take him away. I have to go pack his bags.” A feeling like a cold river ran through his chest as he watched Kitty’s face melt into tears. She started weeping loudly, and Rahne came over to hold her, waving at Bobby to leave. 

Bobby walked wearily to his room where there was no one to hold him if he needed to cry. 

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen tonight?” Jean had asked him in the med lab. “Anything that might have upset him?” 

“No,” he had replied quickly. “Of course not! What do you mean?” 

He replayed this conversation over and over in his head as he gathered Lance’s belongings. 

 

*** 

 

The sun was rising above the buildings, and the bitter smell of smoke hung in the air. Barrow lay on the stretcher, breathing through an oxygen mask and looking at the devastation of the diner. The fire was out, and steam hissed through the broken front window. He saw one of his regulars coming down the street with a look of horror. She was a business woman, or maybe a decorator. He had never had a chance to ask her what she did in all the months he had served her eggs and coffee. She turned and saw him across the street on the stretcher and gave a small wave. He closed his eyes and pretended he hadn’t seen her. 

A groggy passage of time before a stern voice addressed him. “Sir? Can I ask you a few questions now?” He opened his eyes and saw a policeman. Barrow nodded. 

“How did you get out? Do you remember?” 

Barrow started to speak, but began coughing. A paramedic came and helped him sit up until the fit had stopped. The young man wiped his mouth off and replaced the mask. “I imagine it must have been the boy,” Barrow managed, his throat sore. 

“The boy? Someone was with you overnight?” 

“Yes. We were… just staying there a few nights until I got into my new apartment.” 

“And you think he pulled you out.” 

Barrow thought about this, thought about Big John pushing big pots of soup around the stove, wrestling sacks of potatoes from the delivery truck with his skinny arms. Barrow said, “Yes, I’m sure of it. He saved me.” 

“Do you know where he might be?” the policeman asked, putting his pen to his pad. “We’d like to speak to him.” 

John looked around the street again, at the buildings in the foreground and the buildings in the background — at all the layers on layers of the city in which nameless people vanished. “No, I don’t know where he’s gone. Don’t figure he’ll be back, neither.” 

“What’s his name?” 

“It’s John,” he said. The sun rose another degree and touched Barrow’s face with a merciful caress. “Same as mine.”


	13. Raccoon Eyes

“Your eyes are so beautiful,” Mike whispered to Jubilee from an inch away. 

“Oh yeah? What else?” she asked as if she were gathering information for a telephone survey. 

“Your shoulders,” he continued seriously, almost piously, and she laughed, though more quietly than her usual gunshot guffaw. 

“What about them?” she probed, a note of delighted challenge in her voice. 

“They’re round and golden, strong and beautiful, and when you’re in a tank top I just want to…” he kissed the right shoulder with reverence, like he was praying in church. It was the first time he had spent the whole night with a girl. Neither of them had been virgins, but he felt like this had been the real first time. 

In his earlier sexual experiences (three in total), the girl and he had both been trying to prove something, throwing themselves against each other like they were tagging a wall. With Jubilee, it was completely different. The clichés were all true: two souls becoming one, leaving your body, flying into orbit. And while the sex was amazing, the real life-changing discovery was sleeping together in the same bed. He hadn’t know it was so good! So safe and warm. Jubilee had grown uncharacteristically shy after the sex, and asked that they wear their underwear while they slept. So they had; but still, the warmth, the weight of another body as it rolled against you… it was awesome. 

He kissed her left shoulder. 

“My shoulders. God, you’re a freak, Haddad,” she told him coolly, though she couldn’t stop the smile from dancing around the corners of her mouth. “Okay, tell me more.” 

“Your hands,” he picked one up and kissed it, his tongue peeking between his lips ever so slightly, enjoying the salty tang of her palm. “Your elbows,” making his way up. “Your lips,” he touched them with the gentlest, most teasing of kisses that lingered and lingered until she moaned. He climbed on top of her, holding himself up on one elbow while his free hand stroked her hair. 

“And your eyes,” he breathed. “Did I already say your eyes?” 

“You just have an Asian fetish,” she chided, pretending her breathing wasn’t quickening nor her face flushing. “I know your type.” 

“Lebanese _are_ Asians, dork.” he said, smiling for the first time. 

“Barely! And don’t mess with me; I got an 87 on the geography quiz last week!” 

He grabbed her tightly and rolled onto his back, spinning her free of her sheets and up on top of him. Such spontaneity was something new for him with a girl. She reached down and ran her fingers through his long hair. His messy mop was her fault; she encouraged his truant ’do. He knew that if she asked him to, he would grow it down to his ass. 

He wanted to say, “I’m going to fuck you.” He wanted to be that kind of tough, cool guy, but maybe he hadn’t changed so much after all. “I love touching you,” he murmured instead. Her eyes were endless pools that called to him to dive in. He knew she wanted it, too, and his breathing grew faster. But she looked over at her clock, and then towards the door with a panicky twist of her head. 

“Shit, no!” She was climbing off him, straightening her t-shirt. “Auntie Bao could come in any minute. You gotta get out of here.” He made a loud exclamation of outrage, and she clamped a hand over his mouth. “Quiet! We cannot get busted, do you hear me?” 

“It’s only 6:15, Jubes! We have, like 15 minutes for sure.” 

She lay back down stiffly, keeping an eye on the door, and every time he tried to climb on top of her, she pushed him away. She finally allowed their hands to intertwine as they lay side-by-side, and so he made do with that, enjoying the frustrated but sweet closeness in the pale glow of the early morning light. 

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Mike ventured, trying not to sound nervous. “I was chatting with this guy from a school downtown…” 

“Should I be jealous?” 

“Shut up, no! He’s interested in making a bill of rights for mutant students…” 

He felt her tense at his side. “Michael… we talked about this.” 

Mike pressed on, “I think I should help him out.” 

“Don’t get involved. It’s trouble!” 

Mike couldn’t help raising his voice, his frustration breaking through. “It’s trouble anyway, Jubilee! Do you ever go on the GenePool?” 

“Hell no. That board is for losers.” 

“It’s for mutant kids who want to communicate with each other!” he replied, exasperated. 

“And that’s not you. So do me a favor and stay away from things that aren’t your business.” 

“You’re my business. And… other mutants are, too.” For the hundredth time, he wanted to tell her about Bobby, but he knew he would need his friend’s permission for that and, stupidly, he had been too shy to ask for it. “Furthermore, it’s a question of right and wrong. We have to make the world better.” 

He could feel her tension, feel that she wasn’t with him even as their bodies touched. 

“Mike, just let us handle —” Suddenly her cell phone rang loudly — _Get this Party Started_ by Pink — and they both jumped and glanced worriedly at the door. She scrambled over his body to reach the phone on the nightstand. 

Looking at the call display first, she answered in a whisper, “Hi, Rayen! What’s up?” 

Pinned under her soft weight, Mike began stroking her side as she talked. He asked, “Why is she calling so early? That girl is stalking you.” 

She put her hand over the receiver. “Get out of here. The phone probably woke up Auntie Bao!” She rolled off him and began pushing him out of bed. 

“No, come on! We have time!” he pleaded, making himself as immovable as possible 

“Move it! Go!” She underlined her point with a spark to his side that made him leap from the bed with a cry. Looking around for his clothes, he stood half-naked in the pale dawn light. 

“Wait, hold it,” she called out, staring at him. “God, you’re yummy.” He blushed and began pulling on his pants and shirt while she returned to her conversation. 

“Really? Do you think he’ll ask you out? Well then he’s a jerk, forget it. No! You’re awesome! I’m only friends with awesome!” 

A minute later Mike was dressed and opening the bedroom door gingerly, peering down the corridor to see if the coast was clear. 

“Mike, wait, Go out the window.” she hissed from behind him, and then, into the phone. “Yes, it’s Mike. Yes, he’s here. Shut up!” 

Mike closed the door gently and told her, “I can totally get out this way.” 

“I know,” she smiled wickedly. “But it’s more romantic if you climb down the trellis.” 

He stood by the door, not knowing whether to take her seriously. Circling the bed, he opened the window and looked down at the trellis dubiously. He kind of liked the idea of being her Romeo, but it was all too easy to imagine himself falling on his ass like in a cheesy teen comedy. 

Jubilee was kicking her feet and smirking, clearly enjoying his predicament as she casually returned to her phone call. “What? Yeah, I have the history notes. What about Mike?” Looking at him pointedly. “He’s just going! Now!” 

Down the hall, a door squeaked open and they froze. “Jubilation! Who is calling so early?” came Auntie Bao’s voice as she approached the room. Jubilee jumped out of bed still holding her phone, kissed Mike, and all but pushed him out the window. He scrambled out awkwardly, climbing down the trellis to hang just below the window, a rose thorn digging into his hand. He tried not to breathe as he heard the bedroom door open. Above him, Jubilee quickly sat down on the window seat with a nonchalant air, as if engrossed in her conversation. 

He heard the older women’s heavily-accented voice ringing out stridently, “Jubilation! Close the window! Are you crazy? Too cold! You get sick!” 

“One sec, Rayen,” she said casually into the phone. “Good morning, Auntie. Cold? Really? I feel just fine!” 

_Fuck_ , Mike thought. _I_ am _in a teen comedy._

 

*** 

  

Bobby felt nothing. He stood in the shadows of a darkened window in an unused dorm room on the third floor, looking down on the driveway where a scene at once mundane and tragic was unfolding. And he felt nothing. No sorrow, no guilt, no pain. Nope. It was only 8 a.m., and a damp, autumnal dew clung to the fallen leaves and browning grass. 

Already the Alvers’s silver BMW was standing like a shining specter of doom, doors and trunk open hungrily, ready to swallow Lance, his belongings, his memory and take them away forever. That was fine with Bobby who wanted nothing more than to just forget Lance had ever been at the school. When he was gone, they would resume their lives, rekindle their dreams, and lean on each other for support in a way the combative boy had never allowed. _Fuck him,_ Bobby thought. _Fuck him for screwing everything up last night. Fuck him for calling his mother when I was right there._

Even from this far away, Bobby could read Mrs. Alvers’s fury in the tight set of her shoulders and the haughty jut of her jaw. Despite the early hour and the miserable circumstances, she was dressed impeccably, not a hair out of place. _What a fake bitch._ And though she probably had a few choice words to fill the air with, she was leaving the talking up to her husband. Dominic Alvers was as calm and confident as ever, nodding slowly and emphatically as he and Xavier spoke. It was clear that Xavier wasn’t fighting anymore; he had lost this battle. They all had. 

Bobby watched Lance and Kitty sitting to the side of the driveway on a stone bench. She looked shell-shocked, eyes to the gravel. Lance was holding her hand, talking low, and Bobby knew just what he was saying: “It’ll be okay. We’ll see each other soon. It’s not my fault.” _Fuck him_. 

Soon the BMW was pulling away down the driveway as Kitty, Xavier and Bobby watched, each from his or her isolated vantage. Bobby saw Scott emerging from the front door and walking to the Professor. He spoke something in Xavier’s ear, and they turned together to go inside. The Professor stopped to address Kitty who nodded and said something in response. They left her there alone. With everyone gone, she looked very small, and Bobby wished he could help her. He also felt he had no right. 

Bobby watched her for a minute before turning from the window. He opened the door of the dorm room carefully to make sure he was exiting unseen, and then slipped into the hall. He knew breakfast was nearly over, and he headed for the stairs. Step by step, without really thinking about it, he put on a calm and casual persona, ready to greet any teacher with a confident nod, ready to reassure any student that Lance’s departure didn’t change anything for the rest of them. 

He met no one. It was as if the mansion had suddenly become a haunted house and he the only living soul. As he turned down the last set of stairs into the foyer, Kitty ghosted in through the door. She stood watching him descend, her face a picture of desolation. He came to a stop on the last stair and paused, as if stepping off would mean committing himself to something. 

“You didn’t have to, Bobby,” she said quietly with a tone that he might have taken as an accusation if he had something to feel guilty about. Which he didn’t. 

“Didn’t have to what, Kitty?” 

“You could have said goodbye to him, you know. Did you stay inside for my sake?” 

What did she want to hear? He was desperate to say the right thing, and he clung to the ornate newel post as if it was a totem that could keep him from fucking up. “Yeah, I didn’t want to be in the way. I wanted you to have… time to…” He didn’t finish. 

Kitty stared at him for a long painful moment. “I think you didn’t even like him,” she snapped and turned to go, walking towards the dining hall with determined dignity. 

He stood with his mouth open, half forming the words, “I did!” but not releasing them. His mind was suddenly full of confessions: _I had sex with your boyfriend! Every night!_

Another part of his mind rebelled: _No! It wasn’t sex! Just two guys getting off, that’s all_ … 

The first voice, the confessor: _Not last night. Last night it was for real. That’s why Lance lost it. That’s why he had to leave. Because of you._

As much to get away from the voices as anything, he hopped from the last step and ran after Kitty. He entered the dining hall seconds after she did, putting his confident smile back on. All conversation stopped for a second when they appeared, and Bobby felt his façade almost crack. Kitty broke away and joined Rahne, Peter, and Doug at one table at the same time as Bobby was called over to another by Sam and Terry for a full sit-rep. As he told his already polished version of the night’s events, Neal and Roberto joined them. 

“I could sort of tell something was wrong when he came to bed,” Bobby explained to the rapt audience. “He didn’t want to talk. Said his head hurt.” 

“You saw him yesterday in class,” Sam said. “He was strung tighter than a hunting bow on the first day of the season.” 

Terry nodded. “Yeah, I guess he just blew. He was pretty unstable, if you ask me.” 

Bobby’s voice came out more sharply than intended. “That’s not fair! Powers class isn’t easy for anyone.” 

Neal put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Bobby, you are a loyal friend and you always tried to help, but you saw how Lance was struggling. You could have done nothing more.” 

Bobby felt annoyance rising. It made no sense, but Neal’s exotic accent always made him feel like he was being talked down to. Bobby turned away so he could compose himself. Kitty and her tablemates were getting up to put their plates away. It was time for them all to grab their books and get to 8:30 classes. He was expecting her to wait for him, since their first class was together. Instead, she left the dining room without even looking his way; he realized that the rift between them would take time to heal. 

The teachers, who had been huddled together at their own table, more closed and quiet than usual, were also preparing to go. Ororo rose and gathered her papers into her schoolbag while Jean walked over to talk to Jones. He was sitting by himself and seemed even more catatonic than usual, his breakfast only half eaten in front of him. 

“Someone should always sit with him,” Bobby muttered, half to himself, but he saw the others take it to heart. The mansion’s conscience had spoken. _Why did they care what he said?_

“I’ll do lunch,” Terry offered, “but trying to make conversation with him is like transcribing knock-knock jokes from hieroglyphics.” 

“Whoo, that made my head spin, little siren,” Sam laughed. As they returned their dishes, Bobby watched Scott speaking urgently and quietly to the Professor who just nodded curtly in response. Xavier’s hands were clenched in fists. Bobby’s stomach echoed the sentiment. _We lost one,_ he thought. 

 

*** 

 

It was 12:45 and Mike was looking around the busy cafeteria for Jubilee. Traffic was thick as the students with first lunch headed off for class and the second lunch shift poured in to take their rather sticky places. Mike was glad to have second lunch this year because it made the afternoons shorter. This day, which had begun so early, already seemed long. 

After his brilliant descent from the rose trellis, Mike had biked home like there was a stiff trade wind filling his sails. When he came downstairs from his shower, his mother had asked casually if he had slept well at Paul’s house, and he had nodded enthusiastically. Was it his imagination or had she looked suspicious? He had grabbed an apple and headed out before more questions could be asked. All morning in his classes, he had grinned like a man with a secret key to the universe, like the first man who had ever fallen in love. 

He saw Jubilee enter the cafeteria from the north corridor, wearing a tight sweater in pale yellow that made no secret of her perfect curves. She didn’t have a lot of close friends, but she knew a lot of people, and he watched as she engaged in five mini-conversations without ever slowing down. Love her or hate her, everybody paid attention to Jubilee. It was that crazy intensity. He felt like he’d been sleeping for 16 years, and she was finally waking him up. 

She caught sight of him and smiled. It had only been a few hours since he had last seen her, and yet his heart quickened. Any time together seemed precious, and the more he saw of her, the sharper that feeling became. Everything was just perfect — as long as he didn’t say the word “mutant.” 

They kissed and were about to sit down when he saw something storming their way that made him despair. 

“Jubilee! Jubilee!” came the scratchy baby voice of Rayen Cooper. “Oh, God, I’m in so much trouble!” As usual, she seemed on the verge of tears. 

“Hey,” Jubilee said, taking the taller girl in her arms, “Chill out, honey. What’s wrong?” 

Mike sank down in frustration on the cafeteria bench. He looked around at the smirks and stares, and cursed the fact that he was connected to this show. Rayen was… unique. A tall, round, slouching black girl dressed in high-goth regalia, which today meant a black dress with dainty skull buttons, chunky black boots that added another three inches to her considerable height, at least 12 dangly silver bracelets, a floppy raggedy-ann bow of white and black lace in her ironed and crimped hair, white lip-gloss and enough eyeliner and mascara to make her look like a surprised raccoon, cornered by snapping dogs. 

“It’s that bitch Erin and her friends!” 

“In your chemistry lab? What about them?” 

“I just saw them at lunch and they’re already starting! I gotta go to class with them now, and if they say more shit to me, I’m gonna lose it! I’m totally gonna _lose it!_ ” 

Histrionics. He resented the drama that the girl filled their lives with. Why did Jubilee even put up with it? But now Rayen was leading her away, talking in hushed tones with urgent body language. 

He picked up a copy of the student paper and started reading. He looked up as two former basketball teammates passed his table. He raised a hand in greeting, but they didn’t stop. One glanced away, and Mike knew he wasn’t just not being noticed; he was being actively ignored. What did he expect? He dropped the team this year, changed how he looked, started hanging out with Jubilee’s friends. But it still hurt. The only one who remained loyal was Paul Greenstein who could drive him crazy as easily as amuse him. He told himself that it didn’t matter and resumed his reading until Jubilee and her sidekick returned. Rayen still looked shaky, but she was less hysterical. 

“Thanks, Jubes. You’re so, so, SO awesome.” Rayen hugged her enthusiastically. 

“And you text me if you need me, okay?” 

“Ogodogod, I’m late,” Rayen squealed, her voice cracking, and she ran off. 

Jubilee sat and let out a breath. Mike was about to use the moment to make a comment, but Jubilee pre-empted him. “Don’t you start! You don’t know what she goes through. She’s this awesome, spectacular… _thing_ and those assholes treat her like a —” 

“Freak?” 

“Shut up, Michael. You’re not exactly Mr. Popular anymore either.” 

“Jubilee, I know she’s hurting, but still —” 

“Michael! She’s my friend, case closed.” She opened her lunchbox and poked through it. The lunches her aunt made were full of Chinese delicacies that Jubilee was usually happy to trade for his cold cuts and carrot sticks. 

“You like those turnip cakes, right?” she asked, and he reached in happily and grabbed them. Jubilee sighed and looked off into space. “Why are high schools so fucking intolerant? Look around at everyone in their little clique; jocks with jocks, blacks with blacks. It’s disgusting. Only the geeks seem open to anyone. I would join them, but I dress just too damn well. So what’s Rayen supposed to do in a place like this?” 

Finishing the second turnip cake and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Mike commented, “Well, she doesn’t try very hard to fit in with anyone, Jubes.” 

Jubilee turned on him, her eyes wide with shock. “Ohmygod, did I just hear you say that?!” She lowered her voice and hissed, “Mike Haddad? Defender of the mutants? If you had your way, three-headed, fire-breathing students would be going through here everyday.” 

“That’s not the same thing.” 

“It’s exactly the same thing. Either you want a world where everyone is free to be themselves or you don’t.” 

He crossed his arms over his chest angrily until he realized that she had done it first and he was just imitating her. He dropped his folded arms to the table and dropped his head onto them, turning away from her. They were silent for a minute until he felt her hand running through his hair, stroking him in solace. He reached up and put his hand on hers, giving it a small, tender squeeze. He sat up and they looked at each other with matching puppy pouts. 

Mike said, “I just wish she had some friends other than you.” 

“She does,” Jubilee countered. “At the Spiderhole. You have to come with us one Friday night. I think you’d find it…” She gave him a look he couldn’t parse, “Eye-opening.” 

“A goth club? No thank you. There’s only so much angst the human body is supposed to be exposed to.” 

“You’re a snob; admit it. Well, you’re coming there for Halloween whether you like it or not. I already have your costume planned and it’s totally —” She suddenly sat up straight, and Mike realized her phone was vibrating in her pocket. 

“Uh-oh,” she breathed as she checked the text message. “Mike, c’mon! We’ve got to go!” She shouted, grabbing him by the arm so that he almost fell on his ass extricating himself from the bench. 

He tried to get more information out of her as they barreled through the halls (“Wait! Where are we…? Is this about…?”), and apologized to people they crashed into. Two minutes later, up a flight and at the other end of the school, they arrived at the door of the chemistry lab, and he joined Jubilee who was up on tip-toes peering through the window in the door. 

Inside he saw Rayen, shielding her ribboned head under her fleshy arms as Erin and her friends pelted her with wads of paper and, if his shocked eyes were correct, a tampon. The oblivious teacher, writing on the blackboard, had his back to all of this. 

“Fuck, come on!” Jubilee spat and swung open the door of the lab before Mike could protest. He watched in amazement as Jubilee marched straight to the back where the scene was happening, her middle finger raised defiantly at the attackers. 

The teacher finally awoke to the intrusion, turning and sputtering, “What’s going on here? Ms. Lee, is that you? I will not tolerate you interrupting my class.” He didn’t seem to notice Mike who was standing dumbly, holding the door, watching as Jubilee firmly took Rayen’s arm and pulled her to her feet. She grabbed her friend’s purse and ushered them towards the door without pausing. 

“Sorry, Mr. Galecki,” she said as sweetly as she could as she all but carried the large girl from the room. “Rayen has an appointment.” 

The girls who had caused the trouble were hysterical with laughter and Mike heard one say, “I hope it’s an appointment with a stylist.” 

Jubilee and Rayen were already out the door as Galecki shouted after them, “Don’t think I’ll let you get away with this rudeness, young lady!” His eyes fell on Mike for the first time and he glowered with resentment and confusion. 

Mike was suddenly fed up with clueless adults and shot back, “Why don’t _you_ pay attention to the rudeness going on behind your back instead?!” He turned and ran after the girls before he got a response. 

The hall was all but deserted, and he saw Jubilee and Rayen running into the stairwell. He was there a minute later, finding Rayen on her ass against the wall, her face in her hands, her body shaking. 

“It’s okay, now, honey,” Jubilee was saying in a comforting tone, sitting on the stairs. “We’re alone; you can let it out.” 

Rayen raised her head and looked at Jubilee in misery, moaning as if in pain. Before Mike’s amazed eyes, her eyes paled over like she was crying milk and then bruises began to appear on her face. No, they weren’t bruises, they were more orderly. And as he watched with astonishment, they began to form words across her forehead and over her cheeks; vivid, red-purple letters painted as if by a bold but childish hand: “Nigger,” “Freak,” “Fat.” 

Mike looked to Jubilee in shock, and saw a tear roll down his girlfriend’s cheek. She moved forward and cradled Rayen’s head, cooing, “Aww, baby, don’t listen to those idiots. You’re beautiful.” 

Mike slowly dropped to the floor, his mouth hanging open as he watched the mutant girls weep together in solidarity. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby thought the school day would never end. Despite the fact that they shared all but one class, he and Kitty had managed to avoid each other’s eyes for the whole day. The closest call had come when he arrived early to the arboretum for their history class. He had found Kitty already there, staring out the window at nothing, solitary tears moving down her cheek. 

He had almost spoken up, but he had been afraid of his mouth and what it might say. There had been something surprisingly angry waiting on his tongue, and he was not going to allow it into the light. Instead he had backed slowly out of the room, loitering in the hall until he could enter with a group of students. 

All this avoiding and second guessing was exhausting, and it was with a great relief that he staggered toward his room after last class. He was glad there was no training today; he really didn’t have the concentration. As soon as he had thought that, however, the memory of yesterday’s fateful powers class returned, and he once again heard Lance’s angry tirade in his ears: _You think I’m a loser if I can’t do this! Well, fuck you!_

He stepped into their dorm, and the stark vacancy of Lance’s side of the room sucker-punched him in the gut. It was like a trick photo; one of those before-and-after deals. Bobby’s part of the room bore the fuzzy stamp of a living, breathing human — posters, notes, headphones lazily coiled like a snake on a sun-baked rock. In contrast, Lance’s stripped bed, naked walls, closet empty but for two wire hangers, was something unformed — an early stage fetus, still more lizard than human. 

No, it was worse. Oh, God, Bobby knew exactly what it was. It was like his grandmother’s room in the old age home after they finished cleaning it out. As he had helped his mother bag the old dresses, sort the trash from the donatables, he had felt a palpable sense of violating the dead woman’s space — of consigning her to a place beyond memorial. Lance, too, seemed to have been utterly banished, as if any trace of him would upset the balance of the school. Bobby fell on his bed, the guilt crushing him. He really wanted to sleep, but his head buzzed like a hive. Maybe he dozed anyway because when someone knocked on his door, he came to as if from a place far away. 

“Come in,” he managed through his disorientation. 

The door swung open and Terry bounced in followed by Sam, who had celebrated the end of the school day by retrieving his blue Wildcats baseball cap and skateboard. Terry plopped herself on Lance’s stripped mattress, and Sam dropped his board on the floor and sat down in the desk chair. 

“So… we have to talk,” Terry said. 

“Is this about Lance? Kitty?” Bobby asked sleepily, feeling like he didn’t have strength for either topic now. 

“Sort of about Kitty,” she answered. “She’s dropping out of the Halloween party committee. I’m taking her place.” 

Bobby had completely forgotten that they were going to meet today. It was just a few weeks until the holiday, and they had done nothing yet. He turned to Sam (who now had a restless foot on his board and was pushing it back and forth, the wheels hissing languidly) and asked, “You volunteered, too?” 

He pulled his cap low over his eyes. “Yes, apparently. Terry says I’m delighted to be of assistance.” His stationary skating accelerated, and he shot a longing look at the door. 

Bobby sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Well, Kitty’s first idea was a dance.” 

“With only 12 of us?” Terry answered unsurely. 

“Eleven,” said the boy under the baseball cap without looking up. 

Terry chewed her lip. “Well maybe just some good music and refreshments and stuff after the movie.” 

“What movie?” Bobby queried, propping himself up on his elbows. 

Sam stilled the board, sat upright, and pushed his hat out of his eyes. “The Betrayers!” He cried and Terry joined him for the tagline: “They’re already inside!” She fell back on the bed laughing. 

Bobby looked unimpressed. “We’re going to watch television? That’s some wild party.” 

“No!” Sam enthused. “You don’t understand. This is going to be majorly scary, stupid trash! Perfect for Halloween!” 

“Chad Michael Murray is in it,” Terry said. “He is so hot.” She lolled on the mattress in ecstasy, her hand trailing dreamily across the floor like she was in a boat floating down a lazy stream. 

“Yeah, he is,” Bobby nodded. “I mean, he’s a good actor,” he quickly amended and looked obliquely at Sam to see if he had heard the slip, but Sam was turning around to face Bobby’s computer. 

“Check it out, Bobby! You have to see the trailer.” He banged on the space bar a few times to wake up the machine which, Bobby realized, had been on since the previous evening. 

Bobby turned back to Terry. “So you don’t think we can have a dance with just 11 of us? The teachers will be there, too.” 

Before she could respond, Sam said, “Hey, Bobby, You missed an MSN message.” 

“Shit,” Bobby muttered. “Mike must have got back on again.” 

Sam bent towards the screen. “Is Mike ‘Pyro Pyro Burning Bright’?” 

Bobby felt his stomach fall through the floor. He scrambled out of bed like his mattress had caught fire and almost pushed Sam off the chair. He read the message and was struck dumb. It was like a ghost had risen from his screen, like the boy with the long, lovely hair and the wicked words had materialized last night right here, and he had been too fucking out of it to notice! He checked the time and his heart sank further. It was right when they went to sleep. Right after he had — he couldn’t even say the words to himself — with Lance. _Idiot!_

“Ooh, gross!” came an alarmingly high mutant squeal from Terry that made the image on the screen vibrate, and made the boys clutch their ears. They turned to find her holding a pair of Lance’s dirty boxer briefs on the end of one finger. “I guess he forgot these when he packed.” With her lip curled in disgust, she hurled the offending undergarments through the air to Bobby who caught them, a blush already blooming on his face. 

“Uh,” Bobby began uncertainly. “Can we continue this meeting tomorrow at lunch?” He made an attempt at his winning smile. 

“Yeah, Terry,” Sam chimed in, seizing the opportunity to escape. He was on his feet, grabbing his board and heading towards the door. “Tomorrow’s a great idea! We asked some important questions today! We’ll sleep on it.” 

Terry got up, looking at the discarded shorts in Bobby’s hand. “Okay. But maybe we’ll meet in the rec room or something. I can’t take more surprises. Boys…” she murmured in disbelief. 

Bobby was staring fixedly at the message onscreen as the door closed behind them, reading through it for clues, rebutting the last line of Pyro’s message: _Guess you don’t remember me._

“Of course I do, John,” he whispered to the screen. “I never forgot you. Not for a day.” Without realizing it, he had brought Lance’s underwear up to his face. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His cock quickly stiffened. 

He opened his eyes again and John’s message glared at him like an accusation. He felt profoundly ashamed. 

 

Two more weeks of October passed quickly. Bobby had spent much of that time watching Kitty from afar. It was sort of like observing some rare bird in the jungle; you had to move quietly and stay out of sight, or it would startle and vanish for hours. 

On some days she seemed calm and serious, participating fully in her classes and making occasional small talk for a few minutes at meal time before pulling out a book and disappearing behind it. On other days, she didn’t need the excuse of a book in order to withdraw. She would sit alone at meals, or else take a plate back to her room (which wasn’t really allowed, but the teacher’s weren’t pressing the point, given her evident trauma over Lance’s departure). On those isolationist days, she would usually be dressed in an oversized Chicago Cubs sweatshirt and her hair would be pulled back in a ponytail. Her eyes, if she let you catch a glimpse of her face, would be puffy, and she would stare into space as if waiting to see what disaster would happen next. 

Bobby realized that he should at least be trying to talk to her, but he was fairly convinced that she did not want to discuss anything with him. He was also scared of such a conversation — of what she might intuit from his reactions, of what she might make him confess. His reticence made him feel disloyal and pathetic. 

Not all of his time was spent thinking about Kitty. There were hours of homework to get through, meetings of the discussion group, pickup football games and Xbox tournaments… and there was his new hobby. His weeks of night-time adventure with Lance had shifted something in Bobby. Before Lance, his sexual imagination had been something distant, something denied that he would access only when his hard dick called, and even then only when he was far enough down the road to orgasm to allow the images free reign. 

However, once he had begun to experiment with Lance, his days had been filled with daringly conscious thoughts of what they would do that evening, how it had looked and felt the night before. Increasingly, he began to look at the other boys at the school, checking them out in the showers, imagining what they would do with him, imagining what they would look like doing each other. A fantasy conjunction of Neal and Sam had become a reliable favorite. If anything, Lance’s departure had further fueled his erotic imagination. 

It was just after 8 p.m., and a meeting of the Halloween Party Committee (which had expanded to include Peter and Dani) was wrapping up in the music room. Peter had shown them sketches of the teachers re-imagined as witches and monsters that he was going to execute as life-size color cartoons to be hung around the rec room. Sam had finally woken up from his apathetic stupor when it was agreed that he would DJ the party. After the meeting broke off, Bobby and Terry were straightening up the room when Kitty suddenly appeared at the door and looked right at Bobby. She had back the Kitty intensity that had been absent for weeks. 

“Bobby,” she said with a kind of energetic thrum, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” She and Bobby looked simultaneously at Terry whose eyebrows went up in surprise. 

“Uh, yeah,” Terry mumbled. “I was just leaving.” She slipped quickly from the room, closing the door behind her. 

Kitty was instantly at Bobby’s side on the battered couch, opening up the New York Times to a page buried deep in the first section. 

“Look at this,” she breathed, pointing at a story taking up about a third of the page, featuring a photo of an earnest man in a lab coat with telegenic features and a blond wave. He radiated the empty confidence of a B-grade actor playing a doctor. The headline read, “Helping Them Back to Normal,” and the subhead, “Christian Turcott fights to save young mutants from their ‘living hell’.” 

“Shit,” Bobby breathed, amazed both to see Turcott for the first time, and to be sitting there with Kitty as if the previous two weeks hadn’t happened. 

“I know,” she shot back, looking up Bobby in disbelief. “It’s a total puff-piece about how he’s this huge altruist who only cares for his poor, pathetic mutant patients.” 

“But what does he do to them? Does it say? Do they get trained in control like we do?” 

“It basically says dick-all. It’s about the desperate families and the suicidal kids and how they can be helped through a… Wait, here it is, ‘…through my revolutionary program of behavioral therapy and, in serious cases, innovative surgical techniques.’” 

Bobby felt a chill go through him (accompanied, as his chills were, by a drop in the ambient temperature of the room). “Surgery? But what kind of… I don’t like this, Kitty.” 

Kitty wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. “I know. If there were a surgical way of blocking mutant expression, we’d have heard about it from X, wouldn’t we? Or from Professor Grey.” She sneezed. “Hey, could you stop with the deep freeze?” 

“Sorry.” Bobby closed his eyes and focused on turning off his powers. “And who decides these mutants need ‘help’ anyway?” 

Kitty nodded vigorously. “Exactly my question. Lance didn’t decide, did he? It was his parents who wanted it.” 

At the sound of that name, Bobby looked up at her, and they experienced a moment of nervous connection, the first tentative step on the road back to their friendship. “I don’t know,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “I mean, I never asked him ‘Do you wish you weren’t a mutant?’” Bobby found himself flooded with visceral memories of his roommate, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand. He heard his voice come out shakily. “M-maybe he does want to be ‘helped back to normal.’” 

“I hate that word. What the hell does ‘normal’ mean? Anyway, I don’t believe that. Lance was always really proud of his powers. He got a total thrill out of making earthquakes. It was like being in touch with the planet itself, he told me. He was furious about his headaches, though. He said they were a cruel joke when he had such amazing powers.” 

Kitty paused, obviously overtaken by her memories, too. Her eyes were damp, and she was looking through him to some moment in the past. “But there was something else,” she continued. “He was scared because he couldn’t control the power. He told me he had terrible visions where he destroyed everyone he cared about in a huge earthquake. He would see them lying dead, crushed under rubble, falling into chasms he had opened in the ground.” 

Bobby remembered his own dream where he had frozen his brother, Ronnie to death. “Maybe he _does_ want to be nor… um, not a mutant anymore.” 

“I don’t know.” She sounded defeated. 

“Have you heard from him?” 

“I got an email a week ago. He said they were doing a lot of tests, and he was really hopeful they could help.” 

Bobby almost said, _Did he ask about me?_ Instead, he simply asked, “Is that all he wrote?” 

“Basically, yeah. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.” She sighed. “And since then, nothing. I wonder if they check all the outgoing mail. Maybe they’re always standing over you while you write so you don’t tell the whole truth.” 

Bobby was awash with feelings of anger, fear and jealousy. He turned back to the newspaper to hide his emotions. “Look at this bullshit: ‘Turcott’s aim, through this clinic and future branches across the country, is to help those afflicted in this new epidemic. _Public fears about the destructive potential of young mutants is not misplaced_ , Turcott said with the fiery vehemence of a man on a mission. _But we must remember that they did not choose this condition and they deserve our compassion and our help_ ’.” 

Bobby threw the paper across the room. “Fuck him.” 

Kitty stood suddenly, her eyes blazing. 

Bobby muttered, “Sorry… didn’t mean to throw it.” 

“No, that’s not what I… Bobby, get up,” she said, resolutely wiping her eyes as she retrieved the paper. She quickly assumed what he recognized as her politician’s stance, straightening and folding the paper with crisp, efficient gestures and tucking it under arm. “We’re going to see X. It’s time somebody gave us some answers about this clinic where one of us has been exiled.” 

 

*** 

 

Xavier had always found it difficult to explain the experience of telepathy to those not psychically gifted. Most people thought that his abilities were equipped with an on/off switch — either he was reading the minds around him or he was not. While this was true to a point, such a description did not recognize that people were always “broadcasting” their thoughts to some extent unless they had been deliberately taught to mask them. In fact, it was almost impossible for him to completely shut off the psychic world. After all, even with cotton stuffed in one’s ears, the sense of hearing still offers up the thrum and bump of the world. 

Case in point: he was interrupted in the process of marking papers by a storm-front of mental determination rolling his way. He didn’t need to ramp up his powers to know it was Kitty Pryde approaching so deliberately; he only needed to pay attention. There was someone with her. Since experience told him that this person was likely to be Bobby Drake, Xavier could not help but look for the boy’s strong psychic signature and, having found it, could not help feeling the boy’s reluctance to be at Kitty’s side on this mission. It was not telepathy, but deduction that made him realize they were coming to talk about the fate of Lance Alvers. 

While Kitty’s depression over the departure of her boyfriend was a regular point of discussion among the staff, few spoke about the affect it had had on Bobby. Xavier had some idea of the complex relationship between the boys, and he suspected that Jean did, too. Perhaps it was some antiquated sense of decorum that had stopped them from bringing it up openly. Perhaps it was Scott’s unenlightened attitudes that neither wanted to deal with. With a sigh, he put down the English paper he was grading, capped his red fountain pen, and awaited the knock on the door of his private suite. 

“Come in,” he intoned and the inlaid wooden door swung open. 

“Professor,” Kitty said politely, “We’re sorry to disturb you. Is it too late to talk?” 

Bobby, standing glumly at her side, said nothing. 

“No, not at all, Kitty. Please come in. Pull up those two chairs.” Bobby moved the family heirlooms carefully into place, and he and Kitty sat down. Xavier smiled warmly. “Now, what is it you wish to talk about?” 

Kitty unfolded the New York Times and Xavier nodded slowly as they discussed the article. He and the teachers had been wondering if any of the students had seen it. It was a matter of debate among the staff as to how far to include the students in discussions of mutant politics as it unfolded beyond the walls of the school. Ororo and Jean felt that no matter how painful, the children must have their eyes opened. Scott and Xavier favored sheltering students until they were seniors. From Kitty and Bobby’s grasp of the issues implied in the article, Xavier realized it was foolish to think that the students could be kept in innocence. _You wanted the brightest students, Charles,_ he reminded himself. 

“What are these psychological and surgical techniques, Professor?” Kitty asked. 

“I don’t know,” he replied. 

“Has he been able to, I don’t know, _turn off_ anyone’s powers?” Bobby asked with a nervous edge. 

“I don’t know,” Xavier said again. He looked at the frustration on his students’ faces. “The fact is, we have been endeavoring to find out whatever we can. We know there are approximately 27 patients in the clinic now. Though most are from wealthy families, there is more than one young mutant there whose family has sacrificed a great deal to pay Turcott’s costly fees.” 

Kitty’s tone was suddenly accusatory. “But you have no idea what he’s doing? None at all?!” She let out a slow breath of annoyance. “Professor, there isn’t any way of turning off our powers, is there?” 

“Not that I or Professor Grey are aware of, though it is possible that new techniques have been developed by others.” 

“And it’s also possible that Turcott’s a complete con artist., Kitty said, her voice rising. 

Xavier looked her in the eye and answered carefully. “I cannot say that the thought has not crossed my mind.” 

He watched the fury and frustration play on Kitty’s face, and thought with some pleasure about what a great asset she would be to their cause with her passion, clarity of thought, and articulate speech. 

He was so focused on her that he was actually startled to hear Bobby speak, and to feel his wave of fear wash over his mind. “But then what’s going to happen to Lance? Have you heard from his parents?” 

“His parents have asked me to stop inquiring, but they promise to let me know when he’s released.” 

He felt Kitty’s confidence ebb, and she cast a nervous glance at Bobby before turning back to him. “Can’t you find out?” she asked nervously. “Um, telepathically?” 

“Yeah,” Bobby jumped in. “With Cerebro?” 

Their sudden fear made Xavier remember that no matter how bright they were, they were still children. Had he gone too far? He could have stayed polite but reticent, letting them know this matter was something that they should leave to the adults. Yet cutting them out now would mean patronizing them. They would lose this opportunity for a political education that he believed they needed as much as math and history. He had to admit he was improvising as an educator. 

“Robert, Kitty, you have to understand that Christian Turcott’s clinic is legally sanctioned by the State of New York and is under its jurisdiction. We can only hope that the Department of Health is applying its usual rigorous standards to the evaluation of the facility.” 

“But of course,” Kitty said in a low voice, “it’s the only facility for mutants out there, and a lot of rich, connected people want it to be open. Kind of gives the government incentive to sanction it, right?” 

Xavier had to suppress a smile at the girl’s perceptiveness. Her thoughts shone again like clear lasers while Bobby’s were a red haze of emotional reaction. 

“But Professor,” Bobby said quietly, “if he’s hurting mutants, aren’t we obliged to do something?” 

“We are bound by the law, Robert. Professor Grey and myself along with Dr. McCoy are doing everything we can to learn more, and if we find any hint of wrongdoing, we will seek the legal closure of the clinic. Failing that, we will consider… other alternatives.” 

Kitty’s eyebrows went up at that, but Bobby persevered. “Can’t you use Cerebro and at least find out what’s going on?” 

Xavier felt his face betray his anxiety. Having embarked on the path of truth with the students, he no longer felt able to turn back. “For some reason…” he paused and cleared his throat. “For some reason, I cannot penetrate the minds of anyone at the facility.” Bobby and Kitty were staring at him in surprise, perhaps realizing for the first time that their headmaster had limits. “I cannot say why this might be, but I will keep trying.” 

“Professor, what if we —” Kitty began, but he cut her off. 

“Kitty, it’s late and I have grading to do. I would like the two of you to keep what I’ve said here in confidence. If anyone asks about Lance, just tell them that we are keeping an eye on his progress, and will inform everyone when there is news.” 

Xavier watched Bobby return the chairs to their place before he and Kitty left. Alone again, his eye roamed to a unique memento displayed on his desk. It was a shiny piece of steel twisted into the shape of a Bavarian pretzel. He smiled wryly, thinking, _You would like this one, Erik. She has your stubborn zeal._

He sighed. He felt like a hypocrite, offering the students too much information and then asking them to do his censoring for them. He thought with bitter amusement of his own naivety about the school; he had wanted it to be a sanctuary as well as a training ground. But there was no protecting these students from the world outside. 

And how many secrets were there even within the walls of his ancestral home? Teachers who were more than a teaching staff; a high-tech underground world that made their school science lab a cardboard diorama in comparison. He knew they could not keep it quiet forever. In fact, before long some students would be called upon to do more than excel academically. Maybe it was the fear of that day that made him want to protect the students and let them remain children as long as he could. Despite their youth, despite his guilt, for better or worse, they were destined to become his army. 

 

*** 

 

October 31 came around much sooner than Mike would have believed or wished. And here he was in his bedroom, being dressed up by a much too enthusiastic Jubilee for a party he didn’t want to attend. 

“We’ll do the hair and makeup last,” she announced, as she put the finishing touches on the Sharpie tattoo on his bicep. “Otherwise you’ll just mess it up.” He cast a worried glance into his mirror, but was pleasantly surprised at how good he looked with the skull and double-guitar emblem that marked him as a member of some new tribe. Absurdly, he felt a little surge of machismo shoot through him. 

“Excellent!” Jubilee declared. “Okay! Wait until you see this!” She ran to her bag and started rummaging as Mike posed for the mirror wearing nothing but tight jeans and a tattoo, flexing his arms with a look of goofy joy on his face. His expression changed again to uncertainty as Jubilee appeared behind him and slid a leather vest onto his naked torso. Somehow, this garment made him feel even more naked. 

Things only got worse over the next 15 minutes. His embarrassment hit its zenith as Jubilee raced out of the room, and he heard her in the living room announcing him to his parents like the next act in the circus. She shouted raucously for him to come out, and he moved slowly, like his shorts were full of crap. Jubilee hooted appreciatively, but his parents were struck dumb as he stood before them in full glam-metal outfit, makeup, and hair. He kind of realized that he should have gone all the way and raised his fists into the air or something, but instead he acted every inch the shy five year old, dressed up awkwardly in a too-cute suit and paraded in front of cooing relatives. 

His mother didn’t seem able to find any words as she sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa, but his father started to laugh. “Twisted Sister!” he called out. It was the kind of thing that sounded completely absurd in his Lebanese accent. 

“What?” Mike demanded. “I’m a what?!” 

His father stood and walked around Mike like he was examining a prize horse he wanted to purchase. “No, silly boy. They were an American metal band. Early 80s.” 

“You’re pretty hip when it comes to cheesy hair-metal, Mr. Haddad,” Jubilee teased. 

“Beirut was not a backwater town in the early 80s, my dear,” he responded with a wink. Mike was slightly baffled though pleased that his girlfriend and his dad got on so well. 

Mrs. Haddad — who was clearly less sure of Mike’s choice in a girlfriend — sighed theatrically and rose from her place. “Angelica will have dinner ready in five minutes, children,” she announced dourly. “You will have to eat carefully, Michael. Or you will _smear_ your _makeup_.” 

She swept out of the room, and Mike blushed red. 

“Jubilee,” Mr. Haddad said, sending her a serious glance, “this club where you are taking my Michael — this is a safe place? Not a den of ruffians?” 

“No, Mr. H.,” she assured him. “It’s completely cool. A bit weird, but cool. Everyone thinks Goths are violent, or something but it’s just theatre.” 

“Then I will trust your judgment. Michael, I will be there to pick up you and your lovely lady at 11:00. I expect you to be ready.” 

“We could just not go…” Mike offered hopefully. 

“Nonsense,” answered his father laughing and clapping a hand on his son’s bare shoulder. “I am counting on you to bring back the rebellion of my youth!” Mike had a hard time imagining his short, pudgy father as a fist-waving headbanger. 

Mr. Haddad turned to Jubilee with shining eyes and asked, “My dear, do you know ‘Balls to the Wall’ by Accept?” 

Mike realized that the whole evening would be made up of occasions when he wanted to be dead. 

 

*** 

 

The mansion was all abuzz. This was the first official party they had organized since the beginning of school. The fact that it was Halloween added to the excitement. There was something about the chance to dress up as someone else, to make horror a welcome guest instead of a dreaded visitor that made the holiday a necessary antidote to stress. 

Although the details of the evening stemmed from the Halloween committee, as soon as classes ended for the day, every resident of the mansion — student and staff alike — was helping to prepare. All except one. 

Bobby watched Kitty slip from their math class at four o’clock and head upstairs to her room. Since their meeting with Xavier, she had again retreated into herself. Bobby knew that the teachers were worried about her depression. So was he, of course; though he was also pretty darn ready for her to get over it. 

In the meantime, there was Halloween and he was so psyched! This was his favorite holiday, and he had been secretly working on his costume for two weeks: an old-fashioned ice-cream vendor in a white suit and white peaked cap. He had made a special belt to hold three different brightly colored syrups for the snow cones he would produce out of thin air. He had been practicing, and he had the consistency down perfectly. He couldn’t wait to arrive in costume at movie time. 

He wandered into the rec room where Dani and Jones were helping Peter put up his finished cartoon cut-outs. They were even more impressive than the sketches had suggested. Already on the wall was a likeness of Ororo in a witch’s hat and a daringly sexy black dress. Lightning flashed from her fingertips and reflected in the eyes of the white cat at her feet. 

Dani and Jones were lifting the next large cardboard cutout up to Peter on the ladder. It was a cartoon of Scott depicted as a gargoyle with red, flaming eyes, crouched on the ledge of an old-fashioned skyscraper. Dani was all concentration as they balanced the unwieldy object, but Jones’ eyes wandered over to the TV which he turned on remotely with a blink of his eyes. He quickly zoned out and let go of his end of the cutout, causing the others to cry out and almost drop the whole thing. Bobby rushed in to help, as Jones, oblivious, wandered over to the couch and dropped into it, slack-jawed, blinking through the channels. 

Peter sighed and Dani glared at the boy. 

Bobby said, “I know, but there’s not much point getting mad. He won’t even notice.” 

“Bobby,” called a voice from the corridor, and he turned to see Scott standing there watching his effigy being taped to the wall. “Could I talk to you in my office for a minute?” 

Bobby stayed in position until Gargoyle Scott was securely in place, and then turned to follow the original down the hall. They passed Sam and Neal who were moving speakers and DJ equipment towards the cafeteria where the dance would take place after the movie. Sam had slipped into DJ mode a few days earlier, and since then could not be found without sunglasses, a knit hat, and bulky headphones as he perpetually auditioned tracks. The two boys together caused Bobby’s fantasy meter to twitch spasmodically for a second before he turned away, passing through the door that Scott was holding open for him. 

His office was the neatest of all the teachers. The piles of papers sat squarely in stacks, the books were shelved, many with colored flags sticking out of them for fast reference, and the pens were separated into color-coded containers on his desk. If you didn’t know Scott was 24 years old and could be a goofball when he wasn’t on duty (which was almost never these days), you would think the office belonged to some boring old professor in a brown cardigan. Actually, Scott was wearing a brown cardigan. Bobby watched as he leaned back in his leather desk chair, interlaced his fingers over his head and stretched. 

“You look tired,” Bobby offered. 

“I’m fine. It’s been a busy week.” He then smiled and added, “It’s hard work being a gargoyle.” Bobby smiled back, but then Scott’s face went serious. He looked at Bobby through his impenetrable red glasses, and said after a few seconds, “Kitty has asked if she can take a few days in Long Island with her relatives. Her cousin is coming after dinner to pick her up.” 

“She’ll miss the party,” Bobby exclaimed, and he realized that he’d been secretly imagining her coming out of her shell that evening. 

“Kitty is very close to her aunt, and she thinks it would do her some good to talk things over with her. About her feelings, about Lance.” 

Bobby wondered why he was being told all this. “So, are you letting her go?” 

“I’ve decided to allow it. She’ll miss two days of school, but I think it might be a good idea anyway.” 

“What does Professor Xavier think?” Bobby asked and then realized something. “Where is he, anyway? I haven’t seen him since breakfast.” 

Scott hesitated. “The Professor is… he’s occupied with other business, Bobby.” 

“Is he in Cerebro?” 

Scott looked annoyed. He straightened an already squared-off stack of paper. “Yes, he is. He says he needs to spend more time honing his skills. There are certain… subjects he’s been looking for. Please don’t talk to the other students about it.” 

Bobby nodded minimally. He was being asked this a lot lately. It made him feel like an insider — trusted by the teachers above other students — but also like an outsider: like he didn’t truly belong to either group. 

“I have a favor to ask of you,” Scott resumed. “Actually it was Kitty who asked, but I think it’s a good idea. She would like you to accompany her to Long Island. She wants a friend by her side.” 

Bobby felt a crushing weight of disappointment hit him. His mouth fell open, but Scott spoke first. “I know, you want to be with everyone at the party tonight. I’m asking you to sacrifice that for the well-being of your friend.” 

Bobby hated this. He hated that he had to be told not to be selfish. At the same time, he resented Kitty and resented that she hadn’t gotten over her feelings. She had only been going out with Lance for a few weeks. How could she make such a big deal out of this? How could she ask Bobby to miss the party?! 

He voiced none of this. Scott was asking him to me mature, and goddammit, that’s what he was going to be. “Sure, I’m glad to go,” he said, the words like ashes in his mouth. 

“Thank you, Bobby,” Scott said seriously. “No matter what our powers are, our only true strength is how we support each other. Here, I have something for you.” He reached into his desk and brought out a shiny cell phone whose futuristic, sleek design made Bobby’s eyes widen appreciatively. Across the front was a silver “X” that split in two to reveal the controls. “I want you to use it if you’re worried about Kitty and need to talk to us, okay? Or if either of you is revealed as a mutant and you need some kind of support.” 

Bobby promised, pocketing the cell phone. Somehow, having it made him feel like he was going on a more important mission; like it was a symbol of Scott’s trust in him. 

He sat with a pensive Kitty through dinner, asking polite questions about her aunt’s house, making suggestions about movies they could rent over the weekend, all the while trying to shut out the bubbling laughter all around him. Different students stopped by to tell them that they would miss them at the party, and to tell Kitty they were thinking of her. 

A beat up, two-door Honda pulled up to the mansion doors at 7:30, and Kitty and Bobby loaded their bags into the trunk. Kitty sat shotgun and Bobby climbed into the backseat. The car smelled of stale cigarette smoke and Bobby’s nose curled up. 

“This is my cousin, Ezra,” Kitty told him, and the driver, a 20-year-old with shoulder-length kinky brown hair stuck out a hand. 

“Hey, Bob,” he offered in a non-committal way. 

As they pulled out of the driveway, Bobby gave a last wistful thought to his Halloween costume _(Snow cones! Red! Blue! Yellow!)_ , sighed, and resigned himself to his servitude. 

He was barely paying attention as Kitty gave Ezra directions from a printout. He did note with surprise that her morose demeanor had quickly turned around as soon as they left the mansion. She was excited and clearly in-charge of navigation, which was kind of weird since she was from Chicago and Ezra had just driven the route. Bobby began to pay more attention. 

“Uh, Kitty,” he ventured. “Shouldn’t we have turned off at that exit for I-684?” 

“No,” she answered without hesitation. “This is right.” 

“But I thought if you’re heading for Long Island, you —” He noticed Ezra’s smirk and his stomach was suddenly full of butterflies. 

“Change of plans, Bobby,” she explained with the sound of someone who’s been sitting on a secret for too long. She turned over the printout and handed it to him. On the back of the driving directions was an email from Lance dated two days earlier. He had snuck onto a staff computer at the clinic to send it, and wanted her to know his surgery was scheduled for November first. He was a bit nervous, but told her he thought it would be okay. 

Kitty had undone her seatbelt and was kneeling on the front seat backwards, watching Bobby as he read the letter. He looked up at her with trepidation. 

“We’re not going to Long Island,” she said in a tone of barely suppressed glee. Her eyes shone in the lights of the highway, and Bobby was reminded of a raccoon in a tree: hungry and up to no good. “We’re on our way to Poughkeepsie. We’re going to pay a visit to Turcott’s clinic.” 


	14. The Yellow and the Black, Part 1

“No, no, no, no, no, NO,” Bobby moaned, shaking his head like a dog who’d just been sprayed in the nose by a skunk. 

“Bobby,” Kitty began cautiously, and when he didn’t stop, snapped, “Bobby! You have to calm down.” 

He ignored her and turned to the driver, “Ezra, turn this car around right now. I’m serious.” He banged his fist on the back of the driver’s seat for emphasis. 

“Hey, man, I’m just the hired help. She’s the boss,” Ezra responded, his voice unconcerned. He pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. 

Kitty was back on her knees, facing him. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Bobby, listen, I’ll explain everything,” 

Bobby didn’t want to hear. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t safe without a seat belt, but he realized that was the least of their problems. 

“Ezra, exit 9W coming up,” she cautioned, and her older cousin dutifully made a turning signal and changed lanes. “After we talked to X, I started thinking a lot about doing this. Then, about a week ago —” 

“Don’t explain, just tell him to turn us around! We are going to be in so much trouble —” 

“I’m sorry,” she snapped in sudden annoyance, pulling her hand away, “but this is about bigger things than a perfect attendance record, Bobby.” 

His face darkened. “You’re sorry? Well, I’m glad to hear _that,_ at least. What are you sorry for? Making me the bad guy after Lance left? That must have been convenient.” 

“Look, I didn’t mean to —” 

Bobby ignored her and pushed on. “Or is this the apology you didn’t make when you waltzed back in with Times article? Suddenly, when you needed me, I was your friend again; is that right?” 

Kitty bit her lip. 

“Or are you sorry for lying to me, misleading everyone who’s been trying to support you while you were secretly plotting this…this _mission?!”_

Her face fell, and she muttered weakly, “You’re right, Bobby. I was mad and there was no one around to… to blame. God, I’m such a bitch. I am really, really sorry.” 

As a tear appeared in his friend’s eye, Bobby’s anger twisted into a knot of frustration and regret. “Shit, don’t cry, Kitty, you’re not a bitch. Your… your boyfriend was gone. It wasn’t fair. I guess I understand.” 

“Thanks.” She dabbed at her eye and sighed. 

“Kitty, think about this.” Bobby said calmly, friend to friend. “It’s not too late, let’s go back to the mansion. Or to Long Island like we’re supposed to.” 

The lighter popped out, and Ezra coolly lit a cigarette. Bobby glared; he hated when people smoked in closed cars. 

“We have to do something,” Kitty said with great seriousness. “We can’t let Lance get fucked up by some incompetent quack who cares more about money than mutants.” 

At the open mention of mutants, Bobby looked nervously at Ezra. “He knows?” he asked Kitty. 

“Hey, it’s cool, Bob,” Ezra said, exhaling noxious smoke. “Kitty told me last year. She even helped me raid my dad’s liquor cabinet with her (what do you call it?) ‘phrasing?’” 

“Phasing,” Kitty answered looking a bit embarrassed. “Look, Bobby, X can’t do anything to help. His hands are tied.” 

“But we don’t even know anything bad is happening, Kitty!” 

“Right, and that’s why we’re not necessarily going to do anything when we get there,” she explained patiently. 

Bobby blinked. “We’re not? Aren’t we going to, uh, bust him loose or something?” He realized he had been imagining a big prison break scene. He had to admit, it had been kind of thrilling to think of. 

“I just want to take a look at the place,” she continued in soothing tones. “I want to talk to Lance in person, and make sure he’s not getting into any big, dumb Lance trouble.” 

Bobby smiled ruefully. “Always a possibility. And if we do find out he’s in trouble, we contact Xavier and Scott?” Kitty sat back down and looked out the window, not answering. Bobby began to worry again. “Kitty? We’ll get right out of there and call for help, right?” 

“Bobby, remember when X said that he couldn’t do anything if no laws were being broken?” 

Warily he replied, “Yeah…” 

“And then he said, ‘we may have to resort to other alternatives.’” She turned around and looked at Bobby, the fire burning again in her eyes. 

“Kitty…” 

“Don’t you think he was practically _asking_ us to do this?!” 

Bobby’s eyes went wide. “NO! He most definitely was not! Kitty, you’re talking about breaking into a hospital, damaging property —” 

“Kidnapping,” their driver added helpfully. 

“Shut up, Ezra,” Kitty snapped. 

“Just being nice to your friend, Kit.” 

She turned back to stare accusingly at Bobby. “And you’re fine with them jeopardizing his brains? Cutting parts off him like a Thanksgiving turkey until his stupid parents are satisfied?!” 

The point hit Bobby hard and he couldn’t respond. “Kitty, we’ll be in so much trouble,” he moaned. 

He knew as soon as he said it that she would take his weakness for compliance; and, indeed, she turned around and took her seat, spine erect, eyes scanning the road. “Ezra, Taconic State Parkway, merge here,” she ordered coolly and he complied. “And give me a cigarette.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied in a breezy, amused tone, digging in his coat pocket. 

Bobby clenched his fist and pounded his thigh. He found a lump in his pocket: the X-phone Scott had given him. He started to reach for it, imagining the phone call to Scott, imagining forcing Kitty to do the right thing. But was it the right thing? Was he just covering his cowardice by sticking to the rules? Maybe Kitty was really the virtuous one here. 

_Shit!_

He was a prisoner of the car, of the situation, of this crazy girl who was lighting her cigarette in front like she was the cool spy in the cool spy movie. As she exhaled dramatically, he opened his window in retaliation. Cold wind snapped into his face, blowing his curls askew. It felt great; the ice in his veins sang with pleasure. 

Kitty turned around with eyes narrowed, but when he returned her look with a defiant glare, she adopted a more accommodating tone. “Uh, Bobby, don’t you feel cold with that open?” 

“Not at all,” he snapped, and watched with some satisfaction as she wrapped her arms around herself and brought her knees to her chest. Head half out the window, he watched the yellow sodium lights shoot past as they plunged deeper into the black night. 

 

*** 

 

Mike Haddad — lately of the hair metal band Lipstick and Leather — nursed his embarrassment in the back seat of his father’s car while Jubilee gawked and occasionally called out raucously to other costumed revelers slipping in and out of the bars and clubs in Allison/Brighton. Witches tipped their hats to her and pulled their cloaks tighter against the cold as their car slipped around the corner. He almost wished he and Jubilee had taken the MBTA in from the ’burbs, but his dad had had to promise her aunt he would drive them or she would never have been allowed to come. 

“Turn into that parking lot there, Mr. Haddad,” Jubilee called out excitedly. “There! On the right!” 

Mike was less than enthusiastic about being dragged to a party full of strangers, but he was definitely enthusiastic about Jubilee’s costume. After she had painstakingly dressed him for over an hour back at his house, she had vanished into the bathroom for just a few minutes before emerging to take his breath away. Her costume suggested a ringmaster from a sexy, adult circus. She wore a glitter-covered top hat with matching glitter bow tie, thigh-high black suede boots, and a tailored black jacket with tails over black leather shorts and — shining through like a buttercup in a battlefield — a bright yellow vest with gleaming silver buttons. 

Her costume had produced an embarrassingly enthusiastic response from his father, and another wave of cold from his mother who was no more pleased with it than she had been with his. He was going to have to do something to get his mom onside about Jubilee. 

The car turned into a dingy lot, surrounded on two sides by an old factory. There were signs of new businesses having taken over the old hulking structure — small manufacturers and wholesalers — but they were all closed for the night, dark and deserted. Mike felt a strange dread, like they were doing some kind of Mafia meet-up far from the bright, warm places where normal people were safely passing the evening. 

He was about to ask what they were doing in such a desolate spot when Jubilee pointed towards the corner of the lot. Above a small, metal door, painted shiny black and encrusted with sparkles, a spider web of eerie blue neon seemed to have ensnared the red neon letters that spelled out “The Spiderhole.” At the door stood a bouncer — Mike figured him at 6’4” and easily 250 pounds — with a star tattoo over much of his face. He was checking the backpacks and purses of a small group of Halloween-bedecked kids entering the club. Jubilee was all but bouncing in her seat, and grabbed his hand as if to stop herself from floating away. 

Mr. Haddad pulled up opposite the door, and Jubilee immediately jumped out, dragging Mike with her. His dad opened a window and said, “11:15 sharp, kids.” 

“Yes, Mr. Haddad, thanks a lot!” Jubilee called and began to move towards the door. Mike stopped to talk to his father, but her momentum carried her away from him, running to greet a friend who was also just arriving. 

Mike looked into his father’s face and saw the worry there. “It’ll be fine, dad,” he said with what he hoped sounded like confidence. “Jubes has been here a lot, and she says there’s never any real trouble. It’s all ages; that means no alcohol.” 

Mr. Haddad shook his head ruefully. “I don’t like how far you are off the main street. I wonder if the police even come down here. You have your cell phone?” Mike nodded. Mr. Haddad sighed. “Your mother would be most unhappy to learn I left you in such a place; but I suppose I spent my teenage years in some equally unsavory venues. Very well, I trust you to make sensible decisions to protect yourself and your young lady.” 

Mike smiled. “Don’t worry, dad. My ‘young lady’ can take care of herself better than you think.” 

At that moment, Jubilee shouted to him in anything but a ladylike tone: “C’mon, Haddad! The party’s not gonna wait for us!” 

Father and son exchanged another smile, but Mike noticed his father looking at the deserted street with concern before he pulled the car out of the lot and vanished into the night. Mike joined Jubilee at the door where she was saying hi to the massive bouncer as he looked into her purse. 

“I hear you got new ink, Wolf!” she enthused and without saying a word, he tilted his shaved head downwards to show her the crescent moon and three stars that adorned the pinnacle of his dome. “Nice,” she told him. He rose again to his full height and gave Mike a darkly appraising look. Feeling intimidated by the silent figure, Mike lifted his arms from his side to show he was carrying nothing. 

“He’s with me, Wolf,” Jubilee said with a wink. The big man nodded and suddenly she was pulling Mike through the door, down a dim, vertiginous staircase and into a single, large basement room throbbing with happy dark beats, blinking lights in blue and red, and at least 50 kids packed in like sardines…that is, if sardines had dyed black hair and black makeup. As Jubilee led him through the crowd, he saw dozens of variations of the basic goth look, but he also noticed more ornate vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night, elaborately sewn and glued together for Halloween. 

As at school, a surprising number of people seemed to know Jubilee and to be happy to see her, as if the party could only now begin. He followed in her wake, nodding when he was introduced, though he couldn’t really catch any names over the music. 

He spotted Rayen pushing through the crowd to give Jubilee an excited hug, and Mike was surprised to find her beautiful. At school, she carried her height and weight with embarrassment, trying in vain to be invisible. Here at the Spiderhole, she was in her element — at home and sure of herself. Suddenly, she wasn’t a freak; she was a startling Amazon, glamorous and powerful. 

Something whizzed past his head and he ducked. He spun around to see what it was and noticed a skinny girl dressed like a debauched Victorian maid waving her hand in the air. Around her flew a cheap rubber bat. Mike realized it was following the movements of her outstretched arm. The bat circled her head and then headed for a boy in spiked black hair and a floor-length black coat. When the bat struck him in the back of the head, he jumped and his skin flushed red then yellow then blue before he turned around and good-naturedly told the bat’s mistress to fuck off. 

Mike felt his breath catch. He began looking everywhere at once, turning and turning in the gyre of the crowd, realizing that the fangs on that vampire were real, that one girl behind him was semi-translucent, and a boy next to her had phosphorescent antennae. The room was full of mutants! 

He felt Jubilee take his arm. She leaned in to kiss his cheek and shout into his ear over the music, “Do you like it?” 

He nodded mutely, dumb happiness washing across his face. A short, pale boy passed and smiled up at him. His black t-shirt read, “Kurt Cobain was a mutant.” 

 

*** 

 

_“Who’s there? I know you’re hiding… Show yourself!”_

“Oh, shit,” Terry whimpered and squeezed herself deeper into the couch between Sam and Ororo. On the big screen TV in the rec room, “The Betrayers” was unfolding with a predictable mix of suspense and violence. In a suburban backyard, a well-proportioned, dark-haired young man (of the kind the girls tended to call “hot”) was brandishing a flashlight like a weapon and walking with foolish bravado straight into what was certain to be his imminent demise. 

Ororo gave Terry a reassuring squeeze. She looked around the room at the bonds of trust and commitment that had formed in the two months these students had known each other. That she should be part of such a community was a wonderful and unexpected bonus when she thought she had merely signed on as a teacher. What a contrast it was to the misery she had known as a lonely teen; a proud, solitary girl who worked hard to convince herself that she needed no friends. 

She had been 14 when she came to the U.S. with Professor Xavier. Her black African mother and white American father were dead, and the years following their deaths had taught her lessons she wished she had never had to learn. She knew she was lucky compared to other immigrants; she already spoke English and was arriving in her new country to live in affluence — but all the factors that eased her transition also made her alienation more keen. She fit in with neither the white nor the few black students at the private high school the Professor had enrolled her in. She didn’t get the jokes, didn’t speak the lingo and, having lived her early life with two zealous activists in Africa, she found herself looking down on the seemingly frivolous interests of her peers. 

And, of course, there were her powers. Freak storms battered her school all too often in her first year there. At home in the mansion, she would work with Xavier to prevent her emotions from creating havoc with the weather; but in the end, the most reliable method was to turn her back on those emotions altogether. To distance herself. To forego passion, laughter and love until she could find someone who wasn’t afraid to knowingly commit themselves to a weather witch. 

_“Kevin, is that you?”_ the boy onscreen barked with nervous machismo. _“I’ll kill you if you’re messing with me, little bro!”_ With a loud crash, a heavy planter dislodged itself from the wall and would have killed him if he hadn’t leaped away. 

“I told you, Terry,” Sam explained excitedly. “The football guy always buys it first. Him or the slut!” 

Ororo’s mind drifted from the movie as she observed the children around her. Roberto and Neal, though from homelands as far away as hers, had grown up in the world of the privileged which now shared a single global culture. American genre movies were no more strange to them than to any of the other kids who watched with quickening pulses. Dani, of course, wasn’t frightened. She seemed, if anything, amused by the tale, perhaps because it was her power to induce worse nightmares than any Hollywood could envision. Still, she shared the good-humored banter and the popcorn with her friends. Even Jones had woken out of his flatness to become a normal kid once the show had started. 

If anyone was an outsider here, it was Rahne who, with her sheltered, religious upbringing, looked the most shocked by the movie. She was sitting with her back very straight, clicking her long, sharp nails together in a strange ritualistic pattern. Perhaps, Ororo theorized, she was counting an imaginary rosary. 

Ororo noted the natural tendency of a group to leave the outsider alone. Out of respect? Out of fear? She now understood that it wasn’t necessarily malice. Still, it was all too easy to see herself in Rahne, and to feel hurt on her behalf. She could remember sitting in just such a detached, erect posture; a tall girl with a mature beauty, whose long white hair was brushed to a shine and tied in a braid, alone in a crowded room reading history books, looking into the past for fellowship that wasn’t available around her. 

Lost in her reminiscences, Ororo had managed to miss the movie’s first death. It must have been impressive because it drew a universal gasp and at least two screams. 

“It was his brother,” Doug said with authority. “He killed him.” 

“No way, we just saw him up in his bedroom!” Sam countered. 

“It is possible that he can teleport,” Neal hypothesized. 

Scott and Jean entered at that moment and curled up on a large pillow on the floor as Peter passed them a bowl of Margit’s Halloween popcorn, mixed with black raisins and chunks of bright orange dried cantaloupes. 

“What did we miss?” Scott asked, taking a generous handful from the bowl and downing it in one. 

“After one inning,” answered Terry with a manic grin, “the score is evil monsters: 1, humans: 0.” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby watched from the parked car as Kitty sprinted across the lawn of the Turcott Clinic for Advanced Genetic Disorders and disappeared into the shadows along the west side of the building. She had said she’d come and get Bobby after she did an initial reconnaissance. 

Bobby could almost hear his pounding heart in the eerie silence of the quiet neighborhood. Now was the time for him to act! He should admit that he was in over his head, pull out the X-phone and call Scott — _No!_ Such a chicken-shit betrayal of his friend was out of the question. Okay, then, he should leave the car and try to find Kitty; pull her out before they got in big trouble. Every option seemed to lead to a dead end of self-loathing. 

He was relieved when Ezra broke the terrible silence by turning on the sound system. Pulsing electronic beats filled the car like a more palatable smoke. The music was soothing, but with a strange sense of desperate longing. A beautiful female voice drifted on top of the beats, and Bobby closed his eyes to listen. 

_I can see your secret_   
_Hiding in the corner of your eyes_   
_Hiding in the way you tell your lies_   
_The way you bear the weight without a word._

_Can I share your secret…?_

Bobby felt himself drift away on the intimate, confessional voice. His heart and mind slowed, and he felt something inside himself give up and accept his situation. He knew he was going to just go along with whatever Kitty wanted. It was so much easier to just live in the now. Consequences seemed too far away and, frankly, too awful to contemplate. 

“Who is this?” he asked Ezra. 

“The Dazzler,” he replied, seemingly without a care in the world, with no worries that he was transporting two truants on an illegal mission. Bobby kind of admired that attitude. Ezra reminded him of Paul Greenstein back in Boston; never serious but not really flighty either. With guys like that, their very flexibility had a kind of weight. 

There was something magic in the moment — the voice seemed to exude a light that illuminated this strange adventure, and Bobby could see himself from outside. He was strong, he was the one Kitty wanted at her side on this mission. He was cool, listening to trip hop with Ezra in their getaway vehicle. 

_Can I share your secret?_   
_I’ll sink into the beauty of your sea_   
_Diving deep to set your beauty free_   
_Searching for that siren song I heard…_

He was startled out off his reverie by a knock on the window. He looked out, and there was Kitty, gesturing to him. He climbed out of the car and joined her in the fresh air. 

“It doesn’t look like security is a big deal,” she explained, a little out of breath. “There’s one fat rent-a-cop guard, and he’s doing his rounds.” 

“Where’s Lance?” Bobby asked excitedly. “Did you see him?” 

“Nope. The patients are all in their rooms and the lights went into some kind of night mode at 9 o’clock. You ready?” 

“I’m kind of scared,” he admitted. 

“I think it’s going to be easy. We just have to watch out for nurses — three, I think — and the guard.” 

The driver’s window went down, and Ezra asked laconically, “What’re my orders, Kit? Should I fire some rockets in if you send up a flare?” 

She smiled, “You just wait here and try not to fall asleep. If you see us running, get ready to move fast.” 

“Cool. And I got my cyanide pill between my teeth just in case.” 

Bobby did not find that funny. He followed Kitty across the front lawn and up to the main entrance which was dark but for the spill of light from the lampposts over the parking lot. 

“Shouldn’t we be sneaking in the back?” he said anxiously in a whisper. 

“No, that’s where everyone is. The reception area is the quietest place now. Okay, hold on.” She phased through the front door and unlocked it so he could slip inside. “I need you to stay here in reception for a minute while I figure out where to go first.” 

“But what if someone comes?” he hissed in a panic, not having imagined they would be separated. 

“Go wait on those chairs in the alcove. I saw the guard in here before so I don’t think he’ll come back until he does rounds again. If he does, you can duck behind the couch. Back in a minute.” 

Before he could think of any more questions to delay her, she turned and vanished through the wall behind the receptionist’s deserted desk. 

Bobby retreated to his alcove and sat down as ordered. Being in a doctor’s office after hours was kind of surreal. He could imagine the place full of families awaiting consultations, canned music playing, and the receptionist answering the phone with reassuring cheeriness. 

His legs twitched with tension as he watched the wall for Kitty’s reappearance. Having nothing better to do, he flipped through a glossy lifestyle magazine called “Modern Woman Monthly.” The endless pages of useless advertising and dubious advice held little to distract him until he came across a quiz entitled, “10 Ways to Find Out If He Really Likes You.” Looking back at the door to make sure he wasn’t observed, he pulled out his pen and began filling out the quiz. 

It was another five minutes before Kitty phased through the wall and called to him with hushed insistence. Flustered, he dropped the magazine and had to kneel on the floor to retrieve his pen. _Number 3: Does he ever call just to let you know he’s thinking of you?_

Once he had joined her, she brought him over to a fire plan map on the wall and gave him a quick rundown. “The ward is laid out like a capital letter ‘A,’ but with a flat top, not a point, see?” He nodded. “We’re at the right foot of the ‘A.’ Beyond this door is the east corridor. The nursing station is the cross line of the ‘A.’ I think the surgery and other medical areas are in the basement.” 

Bobby pointed at a large room off the west corridor. “What’s that?” 

“Something called the dayroom. Just follow me; I’ve got it covered, okay?” 

He nodded again, and Kitty ducked her head through the door, the rest of her body remaining in the waiting room. Bobby was uncomfortably reminded of ducks swimming on the surface of a pond with their heads underwater. She pulled her head back in and whispered, “Let’s go. Quickly and quietly!” 

She tugged open the door, and soft light flooded through from the corridor beyond. He followed as they ran down the hall of a hospital ward. Like any hospital, there was a sense of scrubbed sterility and utility. There were specialized equipment trolleys parked here and there, and railings lined the wall to help the infirm walk. Unlike other hospitals, this one had more hard wood and polished aluminum, as well as expensive-looking paintings on the wall complete with donor plaques. 

The ceiling lights were muted for night, but there was more than enough illumination for anyone to see them easily. Kitty came to an abrupt halt in front of a room numbered “1001.” With an all-too-audible click, she turned the lock on the door, opened it and pushed him quickly inside. Before he could ask what this room was, she closed the door behind him, leaving him standing inside alone. Panic took him and then doubled when he heard her lock the door from outside. _What is she doing?_ he thought. _Is this some kind of trap?! Xavier wants me sent to the clinic! He’s working with my parents to get rid of my powers!_ But then Kitty phased through the door and stood beside him. 

“Okay,” she said, in a whisper. “We’ll be safe in here for now.” 

His heart still pounding, he took in his surroundings. They were in a patient’s room. The lights were turned low, and he heard the soft hum of diagnostic equipment and caught the smell of disinfectant in the air. 

He jumped as a small lamp on a nightstand was snapped on. Bobby saw a girl about their age sitting up in bed, long hair spilling down over the shoulders of her hospital gown. She was staring at them with interest. There was an IV dripping into her arm, and Bobby suppressed a shudder. He hated needles. 

“Bobby,” Kitty said politely, with an edge of excitement, “This is Marilla.” 

“Hi, Bobby,” the young woman answered. There was something strange about her voice, like it was being processed through a special effects program. 

Kitty drew him forward with a hand on his upper arm. “Marilla’s been telling me a bit about the Clinic. She’s been here two months.” 

“Oh,” Bobby said, surprised, trying to imagine being stuck here that long. “And, um, are you feeling… better?” 

“I’m okay, I guess,” she said and her voice seemed to bend like a Doppler effect on a musical saw. “When I first got here, no one could understand anything I was saying, and my voice would make the lights go funny.” 

“Cool,” Bobby enthused with the keen interest he usually felt when learning a fellow mutant’s powers. Then, with a sobering shock, he realized where they were. “But now you can’t do that?” 

The girl looked kind of embarrassed. “No, not while I’m on my medication.” Bobby and Kitty looked at each other, and the girl blurted out, “My parents are really happy with my progress.” 

In the awkward pause that followed, Bobby looked away, and that was when he saw the other bed. In it lay another girl, this one clearly younger, maybe only 13\. She was unconscious, her head bandaged, monitors blinking around her and an oxygen mask on her face. 

“They did surgery on her Monday,” Marilla explained. “She hasn’t woken up yet. I hope she’ll be okay.” 

Kitty moved to sit on the edge of Marilla’s bed. “Are there a lot of surgeries like that? Brain surgeries?” 

“Yeah, a few a month, I guess.” 

Bobby felt a creeping fear. He had a fleeting image of the back of Lance’s head cracking like an egg. Nervously, he asked, “What happens after? Do the patients get better?” 

Marilla bit her lip. “I guess. I mean, some of them were having a lot of trouble before. You know, like your friend Lance with his headaches.” _Crack!_

Kitty prompted, “And after the operation they feel better?” 

Marilla seemed hesitant. “Dr. Turcott’s really good, I think. That’s what my parents say. He says they’ll need a long recovery, but with therapy, they’ll be able to lead full, normal lives.” 

Bobby looked down at the bandaged girl. “Are there a lot of problems after the operation?” 

“It depends,” Marilla said guiltily. “Alan couldn’t, um, talk anymore. Ashley seemed mostly asleep, and I don’t think she knew us…” 

“Fuck,” Kitty murmured. “Marilla, where’s Lance’s room? I want to talk to him.” 

“He’s in the northwest corner. You go to the end of the hall, past the nurse’s station, then turn left and he’s the last room on the right.” 

“Does he share the room?” 

“No, his folks are paying big bucks for a deluxe.” 

“I’m sure. Listen, thanks a lot for your help,” Kitty said genuinely. “We just want to make sure he understands what he’s getting into.” 

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to wake him up,” Marilla added, speaking in a tiny whisper for the first time, as if afraid of discovery. “They give you sleeping pills the night before surgery.” 

“Thank you,” Kitty repeated and paused. She leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I hope it works out okay for you.” The girl in the bed blushed as Kitty stood up and moved to the door. “Come on, Bobby.” 

Kitty stuck her head through the wall to check if the coast was clear and then phased right out of the room. Bobby gave Marilla a shy smile and the girl smiled back, looking terribly alone. 

“So, everyone’s a mutant at your school?” she asked, and Bobby nodded. “And no one has trouble with their powers?” 

“Yeah, sometimes,” he responded, “but we try to, you know, help each other.” He felt awful that they weren’t doing something to help Marilla. He wanted to promise to return and visit, but he sort of doubted that would happen. He heard the door unlock, and then Kitty swung it open for him. 

He stood nervously in the hall again, looking around for the guard or a nurse as she locked the door behind them. It was only then that he realized how weird it was that the clinic locked the patients in their rooms — like it was a mental institution or the hospital wing in a prison. He really, really wanted to get Lance and get the hell out of this creepy place. 

They scuttled silently along the corridor, staying close to the wall. The hall opened onto the central, open area where a nurses’ station stood. A young man and an older woman were sipping coffee and chatting as they went over some charts. The woman checked her watch. 

“Almeida and Hibbert need meds at 23:30,” she told her colleague, “and we should check the IV and drains on Leung at 22:15.” He nodded. 

Kitty was pointing at the continuation of their corridor beyond the open area, but Bobby didn’t see how they could get there without being seen. He heard a soft squeak and a cleaner appeared from the corridor on the west side of the building, pushing a trolley with a trash bin and various mops and brooms. 

“I’m going to mop the day room, Mrs. Binns,” he announced in a thick Russian accent and she called him over. He walked from his cart to the nursing station, and the woman he’d called Binns began quietly lecturing him on places he habitually left less than spotless. He began an emphatic defense of his cleaning skills. 

“Get ready to run,” Kitty whispered to Bobby and phased through the wall beside them. Bobby was finding it really nerve-wracking to not be part of the planning. Across the room, there was a sudden clattering as the brooms, mops and other equipment tumbled out of the cart, their tether apparently having failed with the help of an unseen mutant hand. 

All eyes turned in that direction and Binns grumbled, “Patients are sleeping, Oleg!” 

Kitty phased back through the wall beside Bobby and hissed, “Go!” With everyone’s back turned to them, they ran unseen across the open area and then straight to the end of the north corridor. Kitty stopped them with a raised hand and peeked around the corner. “There’s another nurse around somewhere,” she cautioned. “I saw her before: a young Hispanic woman. Keep an eye out.” 

Bobby looked down the hallway in front of them and, remembering Marilla’s directions, pointed and said, “That’s gotta be Lance’s room on the right.” 

Kitty led them down the hall, and after a quick check of the west corridor, she unlocked the door of Room 1017 and they slipped inside. Bobby’s heart was beating fast as he moved across the darkened room to the bed while Kitty phased out to lock the door. 

“Lance? Lance, it’s Bobby. I’m here!” he said in an urgent undertone, trying to make out the shape of his former roommate in the darkness. He heard Kitty moving behind him as she phased back inside. He quickly added, “And Kitty’s here, too.” 

She clicked on the overhead light, and Bobby blinked hard before the figure in front of him resolved. Lance lay on his back, mouth hanging open, chest rising and falling lightly, an IV in his arm. His hair had been shaved off and there were various marks made on the scalp, preparatory to the next day’s operation. He looked terribly vulnerable, violated. Bobby heard Kitty whimper as she joined him by the bed. She slipped her hand into his. 

For the first time that evening, Kitty looked very unsure. “Bobby,” she said shakily. “Try to wake him up.” 

Bobby felt an almost superstitious fear, like they might break something, set off some alarm if they disturbed him. Or maybe Lance would scream when he saw them, call for help, like they were strangers here to hurt him. 

“Lance,” Bobby called again before reaching out a hesitant hand to shake his shoulder. Lance stirred a bit, licked his lips and then rolled his head away, still asleep. Bobby shook him again, but to no avail. 

“He’s really under,” Bobby told her. He turned and saw her looking pale and uncertain. Compared to the Kitty who had been leading them through the clinic like she was a veteran of commando assaults, the girl who stood beside him suddenly looked small and young and lost. 

“What should we do?” he asked her, but she didn’t take her gaze off Lance’s sleeping face, his marked head. A tear rolled down her cheeks and Bobby felt panic rising in him. He had followed her inside against his better judgment; he had jeopardized his place at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and now she was falling apart before his eyes. 

He slipped his hand from hers, moved back to the door, and put his ear to it. He heard nothing. He positioned himself just to the side, ready to snap off the lights if the lock suddenly turned. He’d give Kitty a minute to get her shit together. Then everything would be okay. She would tell him what came next. In the meantime, he could ice someone to floor if he had to. He could knock them down and tie them with bed sheets. He could call Scott and whimper, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, come and help us, we’re in Poughkeepsie hiding under a bed!” 

The minutes passed. 

 

*** 

 

“Come on, Jean,” Scott laughed, “Don’t be a wimp!” He looked around the room at the gleeful faces gawping at his normally cool and confident girlfriend with no little amusement. 

“It’s just a commercial now, Doctor Grey,” Terry reassured her. “You can open your eyes.” 

Jean snuck a peak out from behind the improvised screen of her fingers. Scott had to admit he was sort of enjoying her embarrassment. Trying to salvage some dignity, she pulled herself off his shoulder and sat up straight. “Admit it, guys,” she said a bit too loudly, “that was pretty gruesome!” 

Neal chimed in, “You’re a doctor! You’ve dissected cadavers!” 

“It’s different when I’m in control,” she insisted. 

“So, serial killer is still a viable career path, Dr. Grey?” Sam asked with a laugh. 

“Starting with smart-ass students,” Scott replied and threw a cushion at him. Scott was having a good time, rare these days as worries and responsibilities mounted inexorably. 

First of all, being the Assistant Headmaster and a teacher at a new school was a recipe for headaches, no matter how gratifying the work was. Beyond that, however, was a growing sense of impending trouble for mutants in America. The Professor, who was more adept at operating in political circles, was trying to keep most of that work to himself, but Scott wasn’t good at separating Xavier’s problems from his own. If the his mentor was worried, Scott felt he should be doing something to help. He was, of course, doing some very practical things involving both arduous training and the implementation and maintenance of offensive and defensive equipment. Still, nothing ever felt like _enough_. 

He knew he wasn’t alone in feeling the stress. The fact that the Professor was now coming up on eight hours in Cerebro was making all the staff nervous, and Scott had to run interference to stop Jean from pulling him out of there. If Xavier were with them, they would probably be able to completely relax and enjoy this evening of levity with their remarkable students. As it was, Scott’s mind had to remain on alert as always, waiting to switch from leisure to leadership at a moment’s notice. It was at times like this he wanted to yell, “I’m only 24! Can’t I just chill out like a normal guy?” 

“Don’t worry,” Sam reassured Jean, “There won’t be any violence for a while. We’ve had the set up and three deaths. Time for some answers. Remember that car that’s been prowling around their house? I predict we’re about to learn its secret.” 

“Quiet, it’s on!” Doug yelled. 

Sam began a color commentary. “The family holed up in the living room. Everything is a mess because they’re too traumatized to vacuum. Through the window — WHAT DID I TELL YOU?! — the mysterious black sedan slows to a halt. A blurred figure approaches the door…” 

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Terry griped, slapping him on the shoulder before she shot an apologetic look at Ororo. “Sorry, Ms. Monroe. ‘Shut the _heck_ up’ I mean.” 

_“Who are you? We can’t talk now. Our family is in crisis.”_

_“Please, Mr. Carter, I think you’ll want to talk to me. I am Doctor Emanuel Ender.”_

“Oh my God, it’s Professor Xavier,” Dani shouted, and everyone cracked up because there was indeed some resemblance, both in the features (though the man on TV had a thin grey moustache and could walk) and in the air of confident authority. 

“It’s the scientist! There’s always a scientist who explains everything in the middle of the movie,” Doug explained. 

_“Our son Ben is dead, Doctor, and now we’re afraid his little brother Kevin is, too. He’s been missing since last night!”_

_“I don’t think Kevin is dead, Mrs. Carter. Tell me, has he been acting strange since his birthday?”_

_“Why, yes, how did you —?”_

_“And may I confirm… He is thirteen years old?”_

Neal called out, “And has he been taking extra-long showers?” The group exploded in a mixture of laughter and annoyed shushes. 

_“Your son — I’m so sorry to have to bring you the news — your son is a MUTANT!”_

The rec room fell instantly silent, the last traces of laughter falling off into a shocked abyss. Scott felt himself tense. 

_“A-a mutant? I don’t understand? He’s always been normal!”_

_“Yes, of course he has. A child’s mutant abilities — his ‘powers’ if you will — don’t appear until his thirteenth birthday. And then they explode within him, possess him! There is no way back. From that point on, your child is no longer the child you knew.”_

Scott looked around the room at the shell-shocked expressions on everyone’s faces. 

_“But-but Kevin’s my BABY!”_

_“Mrs. Carter, Kevin isn’t even human anymore. And you and me, all humans, we are his instinctive enemies. We are his natural prey.”_

Scott jumped to his feet and moved towards the television. “Who has the remote control?” he shouted angrily. 

Jean called out, “What are you doing, Scott?” 

“I am not leaving this garbage on the screen. Our students do not need to see this!” 

A general cry erupted from all sides of the room — students objecting, telling him they wanted to watch. Scott looked around, fighting with the urge to assert his authority and shut down the party. What good could it do them to be assaulted by this hate? 

Ororo got to her feet and came to stand by him. 

“Scott,” she said calmly, though he could sense the tension beneath the surface, “Millions across America are watching this movie. We cannot protect the students by pretending this isn’t happening.” 

“Please, Mr. Summers,” Peter said. He had also risen from his seat. “We need to see what they’re saying about us.” 

Dani added, “Otherwise, how can we know how to respond?” 

Scott looked at both of them and then back at his fellow teachers. He could see by the faraway look in her eyes that Jean was in telepathic communication with the Professor. “All right, leave the program on. If anyone feels they cannot watch, they should leave, and I want everyone else to respect their decision.” 

There was a pause as he looked around the room, but no one left. 

Ororo turned to address the group. “This is now a classroom. I want everyone watching and listening with critical eyes, with the dispassionate mind of a social historian. We need to analyze what we are seeing.” 

The students nodded with grim resolution. Scott looked into their faces for any obvious signs of distress. He watched Dani move without a word to sit near Doug and Jones, the youngest kids in the room. 

Scott returned to his place on the floor beside Jean, becoming aware of his breathing, running mentally through the muscles of his body, checking them for readiness. Jean put her hand in Scott’s and squeezed. He squeezed back, but did not take his eyes from the screen. He was all alertness. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby was trying to be Scott as he waited for whatever would happen next. He tried to let his teacher’s voice speak inside him, because now that he’d realized Kitty didn’t actually have a plan, someone would need to think of a way out of this place. 

He looked at the wheelchair standing in the corner. If they had to, they could use it to wheel Lance out. But how could they get all the way to the parking lot without being seen? He reviewed the layout of the Clinic in his head and realized that to prevent anyone from following them, he would have to barricade at least two hallways with ice walls. It all depended on where the staff were, of course. Three nurses, a cleaner, a security guard. Would the patients help them if it came to a fight? Maybe it could be a mass liberation! 

But even Marilla had seemed unsure about the two free mutants from the mutant school. More than anything, she wanted to believe in Turcott and to give her parents what they wanted: a normal child. No, they couldn’t count on the patients to help. Shit, they might even try to stop the two interlopers! What powers did they have? Planning this escape was completely overwhelming! How the hell did Scott —? 

“Bobby!” Kitty called. “I think he’s waking up, come here!” 

Bobby darted over to her side, accidentally kicking the metal garbage can. It clanged loudly in the quiet of the night hospital, and they froze, listening for approaching footsteps. 

When none came, Kitty hissed, “Be careful!” She shook Lance’s shoulder carefully and said in a gentle tone, “Lance? Can you hear me? It’s Kitty. Can you open your eyes?” 

They held their collective breath as Lance struggled to regain consciousness. His eyes blinked and he moaned quietly, mumbling, “Kitty? Yer in Wesschesser… I… Cn I have sum water?” 

Bobby noticed a plastic cup with a straw sticking out of it and helped Lance sit up to drink. 

“Here you go, buddy,” he said in a cloying voice that sounded disturbingly like his mother’s. “Take a sip of this.” 

Lance drank mechanically, his eyes shutting again. Then he turned and opened them, taking in Bobby’s presence with crooked smile. “Bobby! S’Bobby, Kitty-Kat! He’s got big balls,” Lance confided, and Bobby flinched. 

“Yes,” Kitty answered in a strained but encouraging tone. “He’s been very brave to come here with me.” 

Lance moved his hand upwards in his usual gesture of clearing his hair from his face. When he found nothing there, he looked confused. Then he noticed the IV in his wrist and winced. 

“No… They’re gonna cut me up, Kitty,” he said, his voice like a child’s. “I don’t want… I don’t want them to do it. I told my dad, but they said I have to and… and then it’ll be better… But —” 

“But you don’t want to go through with it?” Kitty asked with growing excitement. 

“No! I don’t want —” 

“You don’t want them to take your powers and maybe give you brain damage, right?” 

“Kitty,” Bobby snapped, feeling she was out of line. “Don’t put words in his mouth.” 

Lance’s eyes were wet and he was touching his bald head with bewilderment. 

Bobby took hold of his arm before he accidentally pulled his IV free. “Lance,” he said a bit sharply, trying to cut through the drugged haze. “If you’re sure you want to have this operation, maybe get rid of your headaches —” 

“Bobby!” Kitty snapped. 

He ignored her and continued, not taking his eyes from Lance’s. “Then you should do it. But if you want us to get you out of here and take you back to the Mansion, we will.” 

He felt his stomach clench. How could they take him back? His parents would have Xavier arrested for kidnapping. But there wasn’t anywhere else! Could the three of them run away? Hide from the authorities? He felt a terrible dread and anger at the thought that he might have to give up his new home so soon after he found it. 

“Yeah,” Lance muttered. He shook his head and seemed to find his way back to consciousness. Suddenly it seemed like their friend Lance was back with them. “I want to go with you. I told my dad I didn’t want the operation, but Mom was so… so fucking… _insistent._ And he fucking just gave in to her. Like always.” His voice was filled with bitterness. He suddenly started shivering. “C-cold.” 

Kitty ran to the closet and found Lance’s jacket. She draped it over his shoulders and hugged him. “We’ll have to get the IV out,” she said, her voice steadying as her resolve strengthened. 

Bobby’s heart was pounding. They would have to move before any nurse appeared to check on him. “We’ll get him out in the wheelchair,” he announced. 

“Yes! Good idea,” She nodded. “I’ve going to get some towels from the bathroom. If his arm starts bleeding, we can wrap it.” 

Lance was sitting up, hunched forward under his coat. His head was drooping again, and he was mumbling inaudibly. Speaking seemed to have drained him, and he began slipping away from consciousness again. 

Bobby was trying to unlock the wheels of the chair, but either the design wasn’t obvious or else the mechanism was broken. He pulled at the lever with all his strength, banging the back of his hand on the adjacent spokes. “Fuck!” he spat, and watched the blood seep from his cut knuckle. 

He saw Lance look up groggily at him as he put the wound to his mouth and sucked. “Yer havin’ trouble, Bobby?” he slurred. “Wait, I’ll call th’ nurse to help…” 

Bobby’s eyes went wide and he froze in shock. Kitty emerged from the bathroom carrying a towel just as Lance picked up the call button on its long tether from the bed beside him and pushed it decisively. 

In his mind’s eye, Bobby could see the light for Room 1017 begin blinking at the nursing station, perhaps accompanied by a friendly, musical tone. 

 

*** 

 

It was a typical, teasing horror movie ending. The forces of evil had been vanquished, and the innocent had triumphed, though with tragic losses. Then, just when order was restored to their universe, evil re-emerged with a sudden shock and a stab of high-pitched violins on the soundtrack. It reminded Jean of the resurgence of a bacterial infection that you thought you had wiped out with antibiotics. 

And it would all have been great, adrenaline-pumping fun for a Halloween evening if the unspeakable evil they had just watched dramatized on TV wasn’t mutant children. They were mutant children just like the students who surrounded her, for whom she had grown a she-lion’s protective instinct. 

Jean had never realized she had that kind of devotion in her. She knew she was dedicated to science, to Scott and Charles, and to the welfare of the mutant subspecies; but she had never thought she had any kind of maternal love to share. This had been one of the biggest points of contention in her relationship with Scott. He wanted to be a father, and the more kids they had, the better. As far as Jean had been concerned, the demands of children just meant hours away from the lab where her real talent and value lay. 

Then the students had arrived in Westchester and, despite herself, she had begun to care, to worry, to dream on behalf of these talented, maddening individuals. They were, not to put to fine a point on it, her children — and her children were under attack. 

Through her psychic senses, Jean felt the waves of fear, humiliation, and anger flood her from all corners of the room. The emotions were overwhelming, and she had to dampen her telepathy to prevent her own feelings from being swept along on the current. 

The last scene had only just ended when Ororo stood up. “Jones, please mute the volume. Okay, students, let’s examine what we’ve just seen.” Her strong, calm voice broke across the room, and Jean could feel the students’ chaotic emotions focus. “Terry, pretend you know nothing about mutants. Could you please review what the movie tells us about them?” 

“That they suck,” Terry said shakily. Her control was wavering and her voice carried barely audible high frequency overtones that made glasses around the room shudder. 

“No, you need to be specific and analytical,” Ororo replied sternly, and then softened her voice to say, “I know it’s difficult, but we must be strong here.” 

“Okay,” Terry said, with a small shudder as she brought herself and her powers under control. “Um, mutants develop their powers on their thirteenth birthdays. They go crazy and, uh, want to harm humans.” 

“Especially, it would seem, their own families,” Ororo added. “Good. Doug, how does this description differ from what we have learned about mutation here at the school?” 

Doug spoke up with a slightly manic edge. “Mutations manifest at different times. Mostly just after, uh, puberty.” He looked embarrassed to have to say the word out loud, but continued, “In some cases much younger, and sometimes 18, 19 or even later. Our personalities don’t change like, like they did… um, on the show.” 

“Correct,” Ororo replied. “Rahne? What can you add to that?” 

The pause was just a little too long, and everyone in the room turned to find Rahne curled up in her armchair, hugging her knees. Her eyes were shiny with tears. Jean heard the girl’s psychic cry as clearly as if she had been shouting into the room: _*I am evil. There is a demon inside me.*_

Jean gasped. She was about to go to the girl, pull her out of the room, comfort her, when Jones called out, “Hey, the credits are on.” With a blink, he un-muted the TV, and the brooding theme washed over them. Jean watched with some relief as Ororo went to sit beside Rahne, whispering into her ear and stroking her hair. 

The names of actors, producers and technicians scrolled upwards, and Jean wondered angrily who all these people were who were telling such vicious lies about her and the people she loved. How could they sleep with a clear conscience? Scott tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to him. 

“We’re going to have to raise a protest with the network,” he told her quietly. “I wish I knew more about hate-crimes legislation. Isn’t there something about inciting hatred?” 

“Hank will know,” Jean whispered back. 

“Hey, wait,” Dani shouted. “Did that say ‘Jean Grey’?” 

Jean spun around so fast, she knocked over the popcorn bowl, scattering the unpopped kernels across the rug. 

“I’ll rewind it, hold on,” Jones said. He blinked, and the credits reversed direction and, stuttering down the screen. 

“How’re you doing that?” Doug asked with interest. “It’s a live broadcast!” 

“I’ve been backing up the show to the teacher’s partition on the server. They have lots of free disk space.” 

“That is a restricted area,” Scott said indignantly. “How did you manage to access…?” 

Jones ignored him and pointed as the credits rolled forwards again. “There! ‘Science Advisor: Dr. Jean Grey’.” 

All eyes turned to her, and she felt like she must have fallen into a parallel universe. “I-I don’t understand,” she stammered. “I never…” Then she remembered the emails almost a year earlier from the earnest young writer, asking detailed questions from the scientist whose name he had seen in the Washington Post. She remembered feeling flattered that someone was paying attention to her work. 

“Shit,” she exploded, a sound so pinched and sharp it sounded like a sneeze. “He said it was going to be the truth about mutants! He wasn’t even sure it would get made!” Fury was rising in her. “And he certainly didn’t listen to what I told him!” She felt a terrible urge to telekinetically rip the TV from the wall and hurl it through the window. Instead she gritted her teeth and floated the spilled corn kernels back into their bowl, focusing on the complex mental task to hide her embarrassment. 

From the front of the room, Ororo shot her an exasperated look before addressing the students again. “Jones,” she snapped, frazzled. “Mute the TV! Okay, students, we were analyzing —” 

She stopped suddenly, and in that moment, Jean heard Professor Xavier’s voice in her head. _*Jean, we have an emerging situation. Come immediately to the ready room.*_

She looked up and saw that the other two teachers had received the same summons. Scott was on his feet immediately. 

“Students, an emergency has come up, and Ms. Monroe, Dr. Grey and I have to leave you. You may continue the party, but I expect all students in their rooms by 11:30. Peter and Dani are in charge, and you will follow their orders as you would mine. Dani, Peter, please come and talk to me in the hall.” 

Nervous whispers exploded around the rec room as the teachers and the two older students exited. Jean was impressed at how serious and determined Dani and Peter appeared to be in what must have been an unnerving situation. 

Scott addressed them. “Dani, I believe you have learned to send a psychic call to telepaths?” 

“Yes, Mr. Summers.” 

“Good. If any situation arises that either you or Peter do not feel competent to handle, you will send to the Professor. Do not hesitate, especially in any situation where you feel the safety of the students might be compromised.” 

Dani and Peter exchanged a look, and the tall boy asked, “Are we expecting… trouble?” 

“No, not expecting, but we always have to be ready for situations we never anticipated, right?” 

Despite his reassurance, the students looked alarmed. Jean put a hand on Dani’s arm. “Just remember, call the Professor if you’re worried. I’m sure nothing will happen.” Dani nodded. 

Ororo added, “And check in on Rahne. I think the movie affected her pretty badly.” 

Peter replied, “I wish Kitty was here. Rahne trusts her.” 

“Kitty’s dealing with her own problems, Peter,” Scott told him. “We all have to do our best to help each other out. Ororo, Jean, let’s go.” 

Jean’s heart was pounding. She realized that, unlike in similar situations in the past, her fears were not so much for her own safety as for the children’s. She marveled again at these newfound feelings as the trio stepped into the subbasement elevator and it began its descent. 

 

*** 

 

The nurse called “Binns” returned to the day room, an open area off the west corridor with comfortable chairs and couches, a big television, work tables, and more mindless magazines. The big windows overlooking the gardens must have given the room an airy feeling of freedom by day. Now, they just reflected back the same interior in the night-black panes, increasing the sense of imprisonment. 

It was the first time anyone had ever held a gun on Bobby, and he was all too aware that a bullet was waiting within the chamber, that the whole deadly process was controlled by the nervous fingers of the discomfited security guard. 

Binns, though obviously uncomfortable, seemed to be more in control of her emotions. 

“Hector, don’t point that at the children,” she said in the same commanding tone she had used with the cleaner. “We’re not going to make this situation any better if someone gets shot.” 

“What if they’re mutants? We don’t know what they can do.” 

“The Doctor will be here in five minutes, Hector,” she responded impatiently. “You can ask him all the questions you like. Now _put away the gun!_ ” 

The guard lowered the gun a bit, and Bobby thought, _Great, now he’ll just shoot our knees off_. 

“I still think we should call the police,” the guard muttered tightly. 

Binns was staring at Bobby and Kitty, her arms crossed over her chest. Without taking her eyes from them, she told Hector, “No. Dr. Turcott wants to be informed of any incidents before the police are called in.” 

She and Kitty were having something of a staring contest, two stubborn people used to getting their way, neither the type to yield first. Bobby in contrast, looked down at his feet. It felt to him like his life was over. To him, “busted” meant busted for life, busted for good. Condition of everything: busted. 

The silence stretched for a long minute before Binns finally asked, “So, _are_ you mutants?” 

“We’re Lance’s classmates,” Kitty replied simply. “We wanted to see him.” There had been almost no time in Lance’s room before the nurse appeared and the mission had gone to hell. In those scant seconds, they learned that acting under pressure was harder than you’d think. Should they run? Should they force their way out with Lance? Each option seemed to require discussion that they didn’t have time for. As the door unlocked, Kitty had whispered to Bobby. “No powers. Don’t let them know about us!” 

Binns clearly recognized she wasn’t getting the whole story. “Visiting hours end at 7 p.m.” 

“I know, but we were just in town for an hour,” Bobby chimed in hopefully. 

Binns gave him a withering look. “And when you found our doors locked, you thought breaking in would be the right thing to do? How did you do it, anyway? Hector hasn’t found any doors forced or windows broken.” 

Bobby squeezed his lips together and looked back down at his feet. 

Binns gave a grunt of exasperation and crossed the room to a drug company display where she proceeded to straighten pamphlets. From time to time, other nurses and the cleaner appeared in the doorway to gawk at the prisoners. They moved on quickly, usually after a glare from the Head Nurse. 

Bobby was strategizing again. An ice blast to take out the window, a slippery floor to trip up pursuers… but he understood Kitty’s admonition. Mutants on the loose might invite a tougher official response than two kids caught in an error of judgment. They had to talk their way out this. 

Something was happening beyond the door. He could hear the anxious voice of the cleaner rising. Nurse Binns put down the pamphlets and hurried out. Bobby and Kitty found themselves alone with the security guard who raised the gun to the level of their faces again. Bobby’s heart began to beat quickly. 

Kitty glared at the guard and hissed, “You’re a big man with a gun, aren’t you? Maybe your bullets would pass right through me, asshole!” 

“Kitty!” Bobby exclaimed in alarm, but at that moment a voice came from the direction of the door. 

“Please put down the gun, Hector.” It was a clear, friendly voice, and the guard and the two prisoners turned and saw the man. He looked as he had in the Times photograph, though his blond hair wasn’t combed and he was in a thick wooly sweater instead of lab coat and tie. But he had the same winning smile and boyish glint, and he looked oddly happy to find the intruders at his clinic. 

He came forward. “Hi, I’m Dr. Christian Turcott,” he said extending a hand. Bobby stood automatically and shook hands, though he said nothing. “You kids are classmates of Lance’s, right?” 

Bobby looked at Kitty who sat in her chair, tight-lipped. “Um, yeah,” he answered. “This was all just a big misunderstanding, Dr. Turcott. We just wanted to see Lance.” 

Turcott gave him a nod. “Sure, sure,” as if the break-in wasn’t even of concern to him. “So, you’re from Xavier’s school. Are all the students mutants or just some?” 

Bobby’s mouth clamped shut. He was already in over his head, and now he couldn’t even remember the way back to shore. 

It was at this point Kitty broke her silence. “Mutants?” she asked in surprised tone that sat uncomfortably between innocence and sarcasm. “You think there are mutants at our school?” 

Turcott laughed, but without malice. He pulled over a chair and sat down facing her. Bobby sank slowly back into his chair. It was like the three of them were having tea together. 

“Come on, you know why Lance is here. I make no secret about my clinic,” Turcott answered her. “I’m always happy to meet more mutants. The more I know, the more I can help.” 

“Help?” Kitty snapped. “That’s funny. You want to help mutants by destroying them?” 

Turcott’s smile dropped. There was a tense silence before he nodded weightily. “I understand what you’re feeling, but it’s not my goal to destroy anything. I want to help people to be who they who want to be.” 

“By taking away something essential? By neutering them? Has the NIH even approved any of these ‘therapies’?” Kitty was growing angrier, and Bobby winced. They should just be apologizing and trying to get away with promises never to return. She was making everything so much worse. 

Turcott turned and said to Binns, “Esther, could you go get Camille from her room? I’d like her here with me.” Binns nodded and left the room quickly as Turcott turned back to face them. 

“I know it must seem like that to you, but I would never neutralize the powers of a mutant who wanted to keep them. That’s not what this place is about.” 

Bobby broke his silence without even meaning to. “But if someone’s a mutant, they’re a mutant for life. How can you change that?” 

Turcott nodded again. There was something smooth and impenetrable about him — like a man on TV, not a real person in a real conversation. “People change all the time. They want to lose weight, or change the shape of a nose that doesn’t feel like the nose they should have. People change even such fundamentals as gender. So why not mutation?” 

“That’s great, Doctor,” Kitty said, unimpressed, “If I believed you could really do it.” 

“You’re Kitty, aren’t you?” Turcott answered with a smile, visibly throwing her. “You can pass through solid matter.” 

“What makes you think I’m this ‘Kitty’ person?” she asked defensively. 

“Lance told me a lot about you. You mean a lot to him.” 

Kitty suddenly looked lost. Bobby wondered if Lance mentioned him, too. _Number 7: Does he talk to his friends about you?_

Turcott turned to him. “And you are…?” 

He hesitated, but there seemed no more reason for pretense now that Turcott knew who Kitty was. “I’m Bobby.” 

“Nice to meet you, Bobby. So tell me, how did Xavier find you? It must have something to do with telepathy, right? He can sense mutations?” 

The question was asked so innocently that Bobby almost answered. He was so relieved that the man who held their fate in his hand seemed to like them that he was tempted to cooperate fully. 

Just then, a young girl, no more than 11, ran into the room in a flannel nightdress, her black pigtails bouncing as she threw herself into the doctor’s lap. 

“Uncle Chris, hi! Why are you back at work?” Not waiting for an answer she turned to stare at Kitty and Bobby. “Who are they?” 

“These are some new friends, Camille.” The little girl looked at them shyly but curiously. 

Turcott leaned in closer to her ear and said softly, “Millie, has anyone been trying to find us?” 

The girl yawned and rubbed her eyes. She turned to Turcott and nodded, “Yeah all day. I mean, not all the time, but he keeps coming back.” 

“And you’re sure he hasn’t gotten through?” 

Camille shook her head vigorously, her pigtails whipping the air. “No, he can’t get past my… What do you call it, Uncle Chris?” 

Turcott smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Your psychic dampening field, honey. When I talk to your mommy tomorrow, I’m going to tell her what a good girl you’ve been.” Camille beamed. “Now, you go off to bed. I’ll look in on you before I leave, okay?” 

“Okay,” she said, sliding off his lap. She stopped on her way out and turned back to Kitty and Bobby. “Welcome to the clinic. Dr. Turcott will make you feel better. He loves us all.” Binns took her hand and walked her out of the room. 

Turcott watched them leave with a wistful expression on his face. He turned back to them and said, “She’s not really my niece, but her mother and I are great friends.” Kitty gave him another dirty look and he turned to her with his maddening smile still in place. “What Millie says is true, in a way. I do love my patients and I truly care what happens to them.” 

Kitty’s sense of outrage had found its feet again. “As long as they have the money to pay your fees,” she snorted. 

“I don’t deny that I’m making a living here, Kitty,” he responded nonplussed, “but that’s not a crime. And it doesn’t mean I don’t want to help all mutants. I hope that eventually the treatments I develop here will be widely available.” 

Bobby shivered. He thought of the things Marilla had told them about the aftermaths of the operations. He thought of his parents dragging him to a hospital somewhere. 

He spoke up hurriedly, “Look, we’re really sorry we broke in, Dr. Turcott. Can you just, um, let us phone the school? They’ll come and get us. We didn’t do any damage. We won’t do it again.” He turned and looked at Kitty who seemed to be aghast at his outburst. Well, what was he supposed to do? Argue politics? 

Turcott was looking at him seriously, nodding and nodding. “Okay, Bobby, I’ll think about it. The right thing to do is to call the police.” Bobby’s stomach dropped. “I have to think about the welfare of my patients and my staff. This country runs on rule of law. If mutants were to just go around using their powers to circumvent justice, what would happen to our society?” 

“B-but we’re not —” Bobby stammered. 

Kitty snapped at him, “Bobby, be quiet! Okay, what do you want from us?” 

Turcott smiled. “Thank you, Kitty. I just want us to cooperate here and be friends. I need to know more about your school and Professor Xavier. If you could just answer a few questions, I’m sure we could work something out and you would be on your way home.” 

“And what about Lance?” she answered, brow furrowed. “Can he come with us?” 

“Lance has been admitted to this facility by his parents. The family has agreed that the surgery is the best course for him. I’m not about to go against their wishes.” 

“And if we just decide to walk out now?” she asked. Bobby and Turcott tensed in unison “You don’t even know about Bobby’s powers, do you?” All eyes turned to Bobby. 

“Kitty, what are you —” Bobby began. 

She put a finger to her temple. “With just a thought,” she explained, her voice low, everyone in the room leaning forward, “he can make your heart _explode_ in your chest!” Turcott looked alarmed for the first time. The nurses at the door backed away and Hector raised his gun squarely at Bobby’s head. 

Bobby began to shake, “No, I can’t! I mean, I wouldn’t… I mean, don’t make me do something we’ll all regret!” 

Kitty had risen from her seat and was backing away. Bobby found himself getting to his feet to join her. They were moving backwards towards an emergency exit on the garden side of day room. The guard was sweating, the gun held out straight before him. 

“I will be forced to call the FBI, Kitty,” Turcott called, sounding angry for the first time. “Think about what will happen to your school!” 

“Think about what will happen to your heart!” she screamed, and suddenly the room started to shake. 

“Lance…?” Bobby whispered, looking around; but it wasn’t Lance. With a horrible moan, the steel beams of the ceiling began to bend upwards like a stop motion film of an opening flower. With a shower of sparks, the light fixtures fractured and winked out. Glass shattered as windows popped out of the distorting walls. The emergency lights blinked on, and cold air rushed in as the walls peeled open. Someone screamed. 

Silhouetted by the garden lights, a figure approached resolutely, his right arm outstretched. His form billowed, and Bobby realized he was wearing a cape that was being blown by the night breezes. Was it a Halloween costume? What was happening? 

The figure stepped through the hole in the wall, and his face was lit an infernal red by the emergency lights. Severe, handsome, silver-haired with sharp eyes of terrible intelligence that flanked a rounded nose. He was far from young, and yet every gesture bespoke potency and authority. 

The security guard suddenly moved from the shadows and stood facing the intruder, gun outstretched, eyes wide. The silver-haired man appeared to regard him with no more concern than he would a mosquito. And as if it were a mosquito pestering him, he waved his hand minimally and the guard’s gun sailed across the room and attached itself to one of the exposed metal beams in the ceiling with a sharp, percussive ‘clang.’ 

Bobby could see two other figures waiting in the dark garden, spectral and terrifying, as the intruder called out in a rich, cultured voice, “I wish to see Dr. Christian Turcott!” 

Turcott’s staff backed away from their employer instinctively, leaving him alone in the uncompromising gaze of the stranger. 

“Ah, there you are, Doctor,” the man in the cape said with a chilling smile. “I am called Magneto. I think you and I need to have a little chat.” 


	15. The Yellow and the Black, Part 2

_Scott! It’s Bobby with a sit rep! Me and Kitty… the Turcott clinic. The roof and wall just peeled open and, uh, this guy in a cape named Malveno or Maraschino or something…_

“Bobby,” Kitty hissed, breaking his imaginary call. “What do we do?” 

He had no answer for that. He and Kitty were crouched behind a sofa in the battered Day Room where they had sheltered when the debris started flying. Maybe he should phone Scott for real; but the worse the situation got at the clinic, the more trouble he imagined them getting into for being there in the first place. So he said nothing, just squinted through the haze of dust from the recent demolition and tried to make sense of the world. 

The chill of the night was flooding through the hole in the wall, and his ice-sense told him that it was only a few degrees above freezing in the room. The cold seemed to clear his mind, and he found himself wondering if he’d do better at school this winter if he were to study outside. 

Equally cold was the smile of the man in the cape as he crossed the room to stare into the frightened eyes of Christian Turcott. At the same time, two figures, each more improbable than the other, stepped through the shattered wall. The first was a massive man, like one of those 500-pound housebound types Bobby had seen on some TV freak shows. However, unlike those sad figures (usually rescued by the show with camera crew and forklift), this behemoth was mobile, even weirdly athletic, his every dynamic step making the floor shake. He planted himself in front of the security guard, protecting the man in the cape. His puffed up face was inscrutable. 

He was followed inside by a blue woman. While that description would have been enough to mark her in any crowd, this particular blue woman had vivid yellow eyes and bright red hair. She seemed at once naked and costumed, her blue skin festooned with exotic, organic fringes, and she walked with a flowing alertness that seemed simultaneously queen-like and animal. 

“Ohmygod,” Kitty murmured, her mouth slack, her breath visible in the cold. 

The caped man (Manicotti? Magellan?) only had eyes for Turcott, but the blue woman’s probing yellow gaze was swinging through the room like a searchlight, assessing the terrain, taking the measure of the frightened nurses and the Russian cleaner. Her concentration reminded Bobby of Scott’s. 

_Hello, Scott? Sit rep: cape! blue! fat!_

Bobby grabbed Kitty by the shoulders and hauled her down behind the couch. She looked up at him, frightened, and he mouthed “quiet!” to her. 

“Wh-who are you?” Bobby heard Turcott ask, his voice edged with hysteria. Bobby peeked out carefully around the side of the couch. “Magneto, did you say? Is that… some kind of nickname?” 

Magneto laughed gently, as if Turcott had said something pleasantly amusing. “It is my name, Doctor Turcott. My true name, though I only came to it later in life. Much as you only came to be called ‘Doctor’ after much study and trial.” 

Bobby peeked again over the top of the couch as Magneto ( _Magneto? What’s that supposed to mean?_ ) stepped closer to Turcott. He wasn’t any taller than the head of the clinic, but his confidence gave him psychological grandeur. The doctor shrank at his approach. 

“It is a name I chose for myself,” Magneto continued. “And yet it is truer than the human name I was born with. Perhaps it is like your title, _Doctor_. Do you feel you have lived up to the trust and obligation that was bestowed on you with that title?” 

Turcott seemed to have no answer. 

“In essence, Doctor, that is what I’ve come here tonight to ask you.” For the first time, Bobby heard a note of true menace in the voice of the silver-haired man. “You would do well to answer carefully.” 

Without turning, he called out, “Mystique, access the clinic’s records. Let’s find out who the patients are and what the good doctor has planned for them.” 

Bobby had been so intent on Magneto that he had forgotten the blue woman and her unnerving laser-like gaze. She slid into view, passing her boss and heading towards the nursing station beyond the door. Bobby ducked further behind their shelter. 

“Blob,” Magneto called to his other accomplice, and the absurdity of the name underscored the bizarreness of the whole fucked-up scene. Bobby felt his stomach shift. 

“Yessir,” came the hoarse voice of the massive man. 

“Make sure our excitable security professional doesn’t find any other weapons to play with. And as for these fine people,” he indicated the frightened staff, “collect their cell phones and keep them together here while I speak to their employer.” 

The man called Blob took a few thundering steps across the floor, and the beams overhead groaned ominously. Plaster fell on Bobby’s head. 

Mystique called from the door, “Magneto, maybe we’d better move into the main building before the roof in there comes down on everyone.” Bobby was almost surprised to hear her voice, as if she were too exotic for something as mundane as speech. 

“You know, I believe you have a point there, my dear,” he responded. “Blob, take your charges and follow Mystique. Perhaps you should tie them up. If any escape I will be most unhappy.” 

“Come on, move!” Speaking seemed almost painful to Blob, Bobby noted. He peeked around the side of the couch as everyone filed out except Turcott and Magneto. He and Kitty were trapped in the crumbling room with them. 

Bobby turned to communicate with his friend just in time to watch her crawling to the far end of the couch for a vantage point of her own. He felt panic growing in his chest, and realized he didn’t trust her to be careful enough. In fact, this whole fucking fiasco of an evening was proof of that. 

A metal chair slid unaided across the floor beside him, skittering to a halt beside Turcott. Bobby almost shouted out in surprise. 

“Please have a seat, Doctor,” Magneto said in a tone of courteous threat. 

Turcott remained standing. “No, thank you. I’ll ask you again,” the doctor said, finding his lost confidence at last. “What are you doing in my clinic? I do not appreciate my staff being terrorized, my property damaged —” 

Bobby watched Magneto’s face darken. The metal chair shook violently, its feet dancing an agitated tattoo on the floor, as if to say: “He told you to _sit!_ ” 

Turcott sank into the chair with a surprised expression, like his legs had made the decision for him. 

Magneto’s face grew calm again, curious. He paced slowly in front of Turcott who was gripping the seat with both hands. 

“Let us begin, Doctor,” Magneto said. “When did you first become interested in my people — in Mutants?” 

Turcott hesitated a second before answering. “I-I followed the early reports of the manifestations with interest. There was a lot of debate as to whether the cases were purely anomalous or, um, indications of a new sub-species.” 

“Yes, I remember those months well. The buzz amused me, Doctor — human scientists talking about us as if we were an exotic new bacterium or Amazonian frog, as if they could _patent_ us.” 

Magneto’s eyes seemed to warm with sympathy, and in a kinder tone he inquired, “But what was the event that made you change the focus of your career? How did you decide to devote yourself to our… welfare?” 

Perhaps it was because Magneto had asked the question like someone on TV — Larry King maybe — Turcott seemed to find his enthusiasm again. 

“I was at a party, a fundraiser for a new foundation, and I suddenly saw someone I knew. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Derek Strachan? Of the Cambridge Group? No? Anyway, he looked just terrible. I got him a drink and asked what was wrong. I expected to hear ‘divorce’, ‘cancer’, ‘Chapter 11’.” 

Magneto smiled indulgently. “But it wasn’t cancer, was it?” 

“No,” Turcott responded. “It was his daughter. Her mutation had begun subtly, presenting with just a few unusual physiological anomalies: repigmentation, subtle structure realignment. But then she began to register on Geiger counters, emitting gamma radiation. She was being held in a closed ward with no obvious treatments for her condition.” 

“Her _condition_ ,” Magneto repeated quietly. “And of course, you, as a man of medicine — a healer — offered to help.” 

“Well, there wasn’t anything I could do for him. He already had the best doctors money could buy. But it did get me thinking. If the Strachans were experiencing this kind of heartache —” 

“Heartache…” Magneto repeated, encouragingly. 

“Then surely other families were similarly in need.” 

“You saw a niche. An opportunity.” 

“To help, yes.” 

“And how soon was this fine establishment up and running, Doctor?” Magneto somewhat absurdly indicated the demolished room, but Turcott failed to see the irony. 

With his famous smile back in place, he nodded and said, “We had this facility repurposed and renovated within eight months. It was an exceptional team effort.” 

“Don’t be modest, Doctor. It was your dream and vision.” Magneto said with a solicitous smile. “But one wonders how you found the time — what with choosing tile colors and such — to learn anything about the patients you would soon be _cutting open_.” 

Turcott’s face fell as if he had only just remembered what was happening. He shivered in the cold night air. 

“I-I was, of course, studying night and day, talking to the best consultants in the field.” 

“The collective wisdom as it were, yes.” 

“Yes! And I knew there would be a steep learning curve once we opened our doors, perfecting techniques and —” 

“Experimenting,” Magneto said in a low voice. 

Turcott paused. “Yes,” he replied carefully. “Working night and day to find new methods and —” 

“Fumbling in the dark,” Magneto cut him off. “Hacking away at the new flowers of creation. Dissecting the butterfly with a dull hatchet.” 

Turcott tried for indignation, “Look, that’s not fair. It’s a new area of medicine and we are all —” 

Magneto’s brow furrowed. “A new area? Hardly, Doctor Turcott. Blood letting, mutilation — these are as old as time.” 

From the debris, crude cudgels of metal rose in the air and began circling lazily around Turcott who shrank in his seat, trying to present as small a target as possible. Magneto continued, “No, your error, your sin of arrogance came with your first assumption: that there is anything about a fine young Mutant that needs fixing.” The shards of metal began to whirl faster, in more complex patterns, ricocheting off each other with sharp clangs. “The assumption that we are a mistake when, in fact, we are your successors.” 

“Mister… Magneto, please,” Turcott was very frightened now. “You have to understand… the families were heartbroken, desperate…” 

“Tell me, Turcott,” Magneto continued relentlessly, “have you read much about Dr. Mengele? Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death’? He was an avid experimentalist himself. In the Nazi concentration camps, he conducted vile and pointless tortures in the name of science. The Jews whose limbs he broke and whose flesh he cut were not even human, as far as he was concerned. Certainly not as human as a true Aryan man like himself. I was just a boy then and owed my allegiance to a different people than I do now, but I was there. I remember. A handsome man he was, charming like yourself.” 

“That’s not f-fair. I am not Josef Mengele!” 

“Yes, yes. Of course the situation is different. But imagine if you would that you were there in some Weimar mansion, a soirée for the Reich’s most influential citizens. The Strachans of their day, if you will. I think you’ll find this amusing. Listen.” 

The shards were now spinning on their axes as they orbited, and Turcott flinched as they passed his ears with a ‘whoosh.’ 

Magneto had a horrible glint in his eye, and a shocking smile twisted his lips as he spun his tale. “You’ve just tucked away another fine Bavarian cocktail sausage with some excellent schnapps, when Herr Goering comes up to you looking distraught. ‘Ach, Herr Doktor,’ he whines. ‘I don’t know what to do… My wife has given birth to _ein kleiner Jud!_ A Jew, Doctor! Dark, deformed. It is terrible. What will the Feurher say? Is there nothing you can do with your clever scalpel?’” 

“Magneto,” came a voice from the door. Bobby turned to see the women called Mystique standing there. “I have the information on the patients.” 

Magneto did not take his eyes from Turcott. The deadly shards spun in their orbits with terrifying precision. 

“Magneto!” she repeated with a touch of irritation that surprised Bobby, who couldn’t imagine ever challenging the man. 

Magneto sighed. With a crash that made Bobby and Turcott both jump, the shards fell to the floor. Magneto looked up at Mystique and said, “Show me.” 

Mystique entered the Day Room and jerked Turcott to his feet, pushing him forward with his arm twisted behind his back, following Magneto out into the nursing station. 

Bobby and Kitty were alone. He crawled around the couch and found Kitty sitting, clutching her knees tightly to her chest. She was shivering with cold, but there seemed to be a deeper chill in her. 

“Kit?” Bobby whispered, “Are you okay?” 

She was looking towards the chair Turcott had abandoned as if she could still see the drama playing out. She didn’t answer, and Bobby put a gentle hand on her shoulder, calling her name again. 

“He was there,” she said in an almost flat voice. “Magneto. In Auschwitz.” 

Bobby looked around anxiously. There was no time for this. “Kitty, listen, I know. We’ll talk to X about it, but we’ve got to go now. I have a phone from Scott. I can use it to —” He reached for his pocket only to find the bulge gone. “No! Shit, I must have dropped it when we ran for cover. Help me look, Kitty!” He dropped to the dusty floor and began peering around in the dim light. 

He looked up in time to see Kitty making her way to the door through which the others had gone. Standing behind the doorframe, she peered around the corner. 

“Kitty!” Bobby hissed in annoyance, but she gestured for him to join her. He took one more desperate look around for the phone, but curiosity had him by the throat. As he had all along, he found himself following his reckless friend to their next precarious vantage point. 

Mystique was seated at a computer behind the big round desk of the nursing station giving her report. The odd juxtaposition of the blue woman and her mundane setting seemed to Bobby like some new high concept TV show: Alien Hospital. 

“Mostly level one and two; simple physical manifestations or low-level electro-magnetic influence.” 

“No threes or fours?” Magneto asked in a hungry voice. 

“One four. Lance Alvers.” 

“Powers?” 

“One moment. I’m trying to make head or tail of these ridiculous notes. Tectonics!” 

“Excellent! We could use that. Where is he, Mystique?” Magneto looked around at the frightened faces. The three nurses, the cleaner and the guard were sitting on the floor, their hands tied behind them. Turcott was slumped miserably in a chair with Blob standing over him menacingly. “Where are they all?” He addressed Binns. “Where are the patients?” 

“In bed,” she said with some defiance. “Where should they be at this hour?” 

“What, none are walking about? Or have you locked them in like animals?” Binns looked anxiously towards Turcott. “Ah, you have. Blob! Take this nurse and have her unlock all the rooms. Get me Alvers. What room is he in?” 

“1017.” Mystique said, and watched as Blob departed with Binns. Turning back towards the computer, her eyes suddenly widened. “Magneto, over there.” 

Bobby turned with everyone else and gasped when he saw the little girl with a stuffed rabbit under her arm, standing at the end of a corridor. 

“Millie!” Turcott cried and rose to go to her. Blob pushed him back down into his chair with a meaty paw. “Go back to your room right now, do you hear me?” 

“Uncle Chris,” she said in amazement. “Who are these people?” 

Magneto kneeled in front of the girl, suddenly warm and avuncular. “Hello, Millie. Is that your name?” 

“It’s actually Camille. Camille Fleury,” she explained. Mystique turned back to the screen and began typing. 

“She’s beautiful!” the girl exclaimed, looking at the blue woman in wonder. 

“Isn’t she?” Magneto agreed. “Tell me, Camille, are you a patient here at the hospital?” 

“Sort of… the girl began. “I help Uncle Chris.” 

“She’s a psi-dampener, Magneto,” Mystique explained, reading the girl’s electronic file. “Exclusively passive psionics, but powerful.” 

“Ahh, so that explains why Charles has been kept in the dark. Much as he prefers to use diplomatic channels, I was surprised he hadn’t been to this abattoir yet.” 

From the corridors, a few patients began to appear, released from their rooms, curious and startled, including Marilla, pushing her IV on a wheeled stand. 

Magneto looked delighted. “Children, it is time to awaken. You are free from your captivity. It is time to accept that you are not mistakes; you are the next step of human evolution.” 

“Evolution!” came a groggy voice, and Bobby and Kitty craned their necks around the corner. It was Lance in his flimsy hospital gown being held up by Blob, Binns following nervously, pushing the IV pole. 

“Mystique,” Magneto called. “Can you get him fully conscious?” 

Without a word, she rose and walked to a glass fronted medicine cabinet where she peered at the available drugs. She tried the door and, seemingly unsurprised to find it locked, shattered the glass with a sharp blow of her elbow. With practiced proficiency, she prepared a hypodermic and moved across to Lance. 

“Goddam…” he slurred drunkenly. “You have great tits. Blue tits!” She jabbed him with the hypo and he yelped. 

“Sit down and breathe normally,” she instructed and then said to Binns, “You, remove his IV.” 

Half a dozen patients had appeared and were standing in clumps, whispering nervous questions. 

Magneto turned to Turcott who was crouching, a protective arm around Camille. “I believe everyone is here now, Doctor. It is time for your trial to begin.” 

Mystique’s head snapped towards the south corridors. Bobby had heard it, too: a short, sharp, sound almost like a gunshot. 

“Magneto,” she called. “We have company.” 

Magneto frowned. “How annoying. Blob, be prepared. I consider this mission your first true test. Don’t disappoint me.” 

“What’s happening?” Kitty whispered. Bobby restrained her from looking out further and blowing their cover. 

Running footsteps were coming down the corridor. Bobby looked around and saw Magneto and Blob standing ready, awaiting the arrivals. Mystique seemed to have vanished. 

Three figures burst from the corridor. _More Halloween costumes,_ Bobby thought. Three figures in tight yellow and black spandex, like cyclists might wear, including masks that covered all but their mouths and noses. The design came together on their chests to form the letter ‘X’. It would take more cunning disguises for Bobby not to recognize his teachers from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. 

Kitty squeezed his arm painfully. “Holy _shit_ , Bobby,” she breathed. “It’s the X-Men!”

  


*** 

 

Much to his shock and chagrin, Mike was having an amazing time, rocking down Halloween with the mutant Goths of the Spiderhole. It was an evening of surprise and learning. Considering he was usually shy with strangers, he was dancing with amazing abandon and laughing with kids he had never met. He realized he was responding to the joy they were feeling, free to be themselves for one blissful night. This sense of freedom gave him a clue as to how scared and repressed the life of a mutant teen must be. 

Jubilee was a bee flying through the crowd — a yellow and black buzz of social interaction, everywhere at once, but always returning to check in on him. He thought of her refusal to join him in fighting for mutant rights at school, and realized that she was doing her part here. 

At one point, she popped out of the crowd and threw her arms around him, planting a deep kiss on his shocked lips to the amusement of the group he was dancing with. Her hand caressed his bare torso under his leather vest, and he felt his dick harden immediately. She suddenly extracted a condom package from a pocket in the vest and twirled away from him. Confused, he watched her hand it to the kid with the Kurt Cobain t-shirt (“Have fun, Lucky,” she told him) who was standing shyly, hand-in-hand with a tall red-headed boy chewing anxiously on one of his lip rings. Prophylactically equipped, the couple disappeared into the crowd, Jubilee blowing a saucy kiss after them. 

An evening of surprise and learning. 

Ten minutes later, covered in sweat after a particularly fast set of dancing, he decided it was time for a break. He found his coat where he had stashed it behind a bank of speakers and headed for the parking lot, nodding to Wolf as he passed, though the big doorman didn’t respond. 

The clean, cold air felt good after the close heat of the club. He thought of hot summer visits to the woods with Bobby when his friend’s ice blasts would cool him off. _If only Bobby could be here to see this,_ he thought. _I bet his Halloween isn’t nearly as exciting!_

“Hey,” a voice called, and Mike turned to face another guy sitting up on top of a closed dumpster. He was around Mike’s age, wearing a battered, chain-festooned leather jacket, tight, ripped black jeans, and serious shit-kicking boots. His hair was shaved on one side and he had a prison-style tattoo on the shaved part. Mike recognized the crudely rendered mark as the Greek letter Omega. 

“Hey,” Mike called back. “You here at the party, too?” 

“Yeah, just taking a break.” Despite the intimidating outfit, the guy didn’t seem like trouble. Mike moved over to the dumpster and accepted the proffered hand, scrambling up beside him. 

“So,” the guy said, pulling off his headphones. “You’re here with Jubes. She’s the shit.” 

“Yeah,” Mike said, feeling a surge of pride. “She’s my girlfriend. I’m Mike.” 

“Xeno,” the guy responded, his breath visible in the cold air. “Hey, look, steamy windows!” 

Mike looked over at one of the parked cars, a tiny two-door Echo, which was rocking a bit. He thought of the Cobain kid and the redheaded boy. “Uh, is that…?” 

“Ludo and Lucky,” Xeno said with a grin, “exploring the dark side of the moon.” He laughed at Mike’s shocked expression, and then looked him up and down with a dubious glare. “Please tell me that’s a costume you’re wearing.” 

“Huh? Oh yeah, of course!” Mike’s embarrassment notched up higher. He had kind of forgotten what he was wearing, especially the makeup. 

“Good. I don’t think I could hang with you if you were really into hair metal.” 

Mike looked down at the mp3 player Xeno was fiddling with and asked, “What music do you like?” 

Xeno gave him a challenging look. “Hardcore. Thrash. Punk. You?” 

“Um, I don’t know.” He suddenly wanted to impress the boy. “I just like different stuff I download or get from friends. Akon, Fall Out Boy…” 

Xeno guffawed, which pissed Mike off since he thought his picks had been kind of cool. Xeno’s fingers whirled on the dials of his mp3 player and then he reached over and unceremoniously stuffed the headphones into Mike’s ears. 

He was about to object to this assault on his personal space, when Xeno hit play and a different assault started. Loud, fast, abrasive, unpolished music hit his head like a lead pipe. Mike reached up to rip the phones out and assert some control over the situation, but Xeno grabbed him by the shoulders and flipped on top of him, slamming him against the cold metal of the dumpster with a resounding ‘klang.’ 

Mike tried to fight him off, but he was decisively pinned. Looking up at the smiling face suspended over his, he saw Xeno mouth the word, “listen!” 

_Rip it loose_   
_Don’t take it lying down_   
_Just tie the noose around the clown_   
_He lied to you from the day you fell out bleeding_   
  
_He laughed in your face when you were pleading_

The music shot through Mike like an electric shock. It was angry, but also stupidly joyous and even funny. It made him gasp with its audacity. It made him feel like he shouldn’t take shit from anyone ever again. His mind started making all kinds of connections: if he wanted to put up mutant rights posters at his school, he fucking would, and he’d take on anyone who tried to stop him, whether it was bigoted students or asshole administrators. 

He was banging the dumpster lid in ragged time, and it took him a second to realize that Xeno was no longer pinning him, but sitting up beside him with a broad grin. As the song finished, Mike took off the phones and told the other boy, “That was really good. Like, really.” 

“Listen to this one,” Xeno told him, his mask of superiority now dropped in favor of pure enthusiasm. “This is the Circle Jerks. Classic L.A. scene, like 20 years ago!” Mike put the phones back on and listened, learned. 

The third selection was different. First of all there were computer beats which he didn’t think was very punk, but the raw attitude, the wail of the vocals and the guitars was every inch hardcore as were the lyrics: 

_Burn it on my flesh_   
_It’s burned in my chromosomes_   
_Cut with a scalpel in the D-D-DNA!_

_And I won’t shut up_   
_I won’t fuck off and die_   
_So your Harvard boys can have their blue eyes!_

_I’m Xeno Evil, I’ll be your mutant tonight!!!!_

Weird, aching high-pitched screams swam across the stereo field like an agitated school of piranhas, and Mike felt like they were making his world spin and twist apart. 

He pulled off the headphones and saw that Xeno was very pointedly not looking at him. “Xeno Evil. That was you?” Mike asked, impressed. 

“Yeah, it’s just a demo. It kind of sucks.” Mike wanted to laugh because now it was the cool Xeno who was looking embarrassed. 

“It totally does not suck!” he enthused. “It’s fucking awesome. What’s that noise at the end? Those really high scream sounds? It’s not a guitar…” 

Xeno turned and smiled. He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “My secret weapon. And I will not divulge…” he stopped and looked out across the parking lot. “Oh, shit, here they come.” 

Mike followed Xeno’s gaze and saw two cars pulling into the lot, driving too fast in what amounted to automotive swagger. The vehicles screeched to a halt half way to the club. Mike looked over to the door of the Spiderhole and saw Wolf standing there along with three or four partygoers. They were watching the intruders warily. 

One of the car windows rolled down and an angry drunken face — a frat boy by the look of it — leaned out and yelled, “Hey, muties! We fucking know what you are!” 

The passenger door of the second car opened, and the kid who stepped halfway out was big, maybe a football player. “Yeah, you can’t fucking hide, muties!” 

The first boy repeated, “We know what you are now! ‘Betrayers!’” 

“Betrayers!” echoed the football jock. “Mutie betrayers!” 

A chorus of ugly laughter from the cars. The first car screeched out of the lot, but the football player pointed at Wolf who had moved a few steps forward, adopting his most intimidating posture. “You think you can just do whatever you fucking want? We’ll show you… We’ll show you!” 

The car had been revving its engine, and he was barely back inside before it jerked into motion, circled the lot right in front of them, and peeled noisily back into the quiet side-street. 

More kids had appeared from inside, and they stood huddled in the door looking scared. Xeno jumped off the dumpster and marched up to Wolf. 

“They’ll be back,” he announced, and Mike felt his stomach clench.

  


*** 

 

“My, but those are stirring costumes,” Magneto announced as Scott, Ororo and Jean pulled to an abrupt halt in the crowded area around the nursing station. The scattered patients pulled back in fright and confusion. “Has Charles been dabbling in fashion design, or did he hire a consultant?” 

Scott took a step forward. “Magneto, we have come here with a message from Professor X. He would like you to come with us, to come talk with him. He says to tell you that it is not too late to work together.” 

“How nice to hear that Charles holds no grudges.” His eyes narrowed and his smile grew harder. “I somehow doubt you share that generosity of spirit, Cyclops.” 

_Cyclops?_ Bobby was working hard to understand the situation which was continuing to grow weirder. _X-Men!_ That was the joke name he had made up for Kitty’s amusement back in the summer when they had been goofing on the idea of their teachers as a secret team of action heroes. But, as Kitty had put it, _Holy shit!_ There they were! 

He could see Scott struggling to maintain his temper. Jean leaned towards Scott and whispered in his ear. Cautioning him? Scott ignored her and answered Magneto. “How I feel doesn’t matter,” he said curtly. “I had a message and I delivered it. Will you come with us quietly? Let me make something clear: I will not allow any innocents to be harmed here.” 

“My feelings exactly,” Magneto replied and walked back towards Turcott. “That’s why we’ve come here tonight to speak to the Butcher of Poughkeepsie: protection of the innocent.” Turcott shrank back. 

“You heard me, Magneto,” Scott continued. “If you are responsible for any injury tonight —” 

Magneto turned on Scott and smiled his chilling smile. “Oh yes, questions of responsibility have always troubled you, haven’t they, Cyclops? For instance, you can’t decide if Charles was crippled primarily due to my actions or your _inaction_.” 

Instantly, Scott’s hand moved to his visor. With the smallest of waves, Magneto made a metal tray fly from a food wagon and wrap itself around Scott’s face. He fell to the floor, where he pawed frantically at the shining mask. 

Several patients shrieked and began rushing for the safety of the corridors. 

Ororo was on the move. She seemed to be pulling cold wind through from the damaged Day Room and whipping it against Magneto, who staggered in the blast, cape flying. 

Jean was on the floor helping to free Scott. Over the wind, Bobby heard her call, “Cyclops, my powers aren’t working!” 

Kitty squeezed Bobby’s arm and whispered, “It’s the little girl, Camille. She must block all kinds of psionics.” 

Ororo had turned to look at Jean and was suddenly thrown through the air by the one called Blob who had run into her with the force of a rhinoceros. She hit the far wall and crashed to the floor. 

“We have to do something!” Kitty hissed at Bobby. 

“Wait,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “We have surprise on our side; don’t do anything yet.” Amazingly, Kitty nodded and obeyed. 

_Am I being clever or cowardly?_ Bobby thought to himself. 

Ororo’s wind had died, and Magneto was back on his feet. He magnetically tore one of the steel chairs apart with shocking ease and the legs stretched, twisted and circled Turcott like the coils of a cobra. Magneto clenched his teeth and Turcott rose, struggling into the air. 

The sound of Scott’s optic blasts rang out, and the tray flew across the room and hit the wall with a crash. Magneto sent a shower of medical equipment flying towards him and Jean, but they rolled clear and sheltered behind the large nursing desk. 

“Enough of this nonsense!” Magneto called out. “I am leaving with Turcott, and you cannot stop me. Stand down and you will not be hurt.” Scott was making his way unseen around the circular island of the desk, hand ready at his visor controls. 

“No!” screamed Turcott to whomever might save him. “Don’t let him take me! I’m a doctor! I just want to help people!” 

Perhaps his cries had distracted Scott, because Bobby watched in horror as Blob began to run at his teacher’s blind side, gaining terrible momentum as Scott lined up a shot at Magneto. 

Bobby found himself in motion without having really planned it. He dived from his cover, rolling on the floor, and coming up into a kneeling position with ice already spraying from his outstretched hand. He had executed the move just as he had learned in his training. 

Blob hit the ice patch and skidded past Scott with a surprised grunt. Scott, caught off guard but recovering instantly, spun around and sent off a short optic blast to help send the behemoth into the wall with a terrible thud. Blob slid to the floor, and immediately began to shrink and collapse on himself until there was only the unconscious figure of a normal, if kind of chubby teenage boy lying there in innocent oblivion. 

Bobby turned his head slowly back around and found himself staring into Scott’s face. His stomach turned over painfully. 

“Scott,” he began shakily, “Let me explain —” 

 

*** 

 

Within minutes of the cars’ pulling out of the lot, a small crowd of kids had gathered near the entrance of the Spiderhole. 

“Who are they?” Mike asked Xeno, seeing the grim and nervous set to everyone’s faces. 

“Frat boys. Assholes,” Xeno replied. “Mostly they’re just a lot of hot air, but they call us names and try to freak us out.” 

“How do they know you’re mutants?” Mike asked as more partiers gathered outside, forming a small island in front of the door. In the middle of the island was Wolf, rising like a volcano, fuming quietly. 

“They’ve been around a while. They saw stuff. What did they mean about ‘betrayers’?” 

A girl who had pulled up beside them answered, “It’s that movie they showed on TV tonight.” 

Mike was confused. “But what does that have to do with —” 

It was Rayen who answered, reading a text message on her cell phone. “Shit, oh my god. It was about mutants!” 

Jubilee was suddenly there, sliding an arm around Mike’s waist and pulling herself in close. “What do you mean ‘about mutants’?” 

Rayen looked up at her friend with her lost baby look. “Dean just texted me. He says the movie was about evil mutant children killing their families and stuff.” 

No one said a word. Mike felt the outrage like a physical force. He wrapped a protective arm around Jubilee. 

Rayen was the first to speak. “Should we all go inside? Usually they just leave if we stay inside long enough. Or maybe we should take off while we still have the chance.” 

Mike was surprised to hear himself answer. “Fuck that. This is our party and we’re not going anywhere.” 

“They sometimes wave baseball bats and shit, Mike,” Jubilee cautioned him. “Maybe they’ll use them now if they think this is a bug hunt.” 

Mike set his jaw. “So? They have baseball bats on their side; you have powers.” 

Jubilee and a few of the others exchanged worried looks. 

Xeno tilted his head suspiciously. “You a Flatscan, Mike?” 

“A what?” 

“A Norm.” 

It sounded almost dirty the way he said it and Mike resented that. It was like the way he had been dismissed at Bobby’s mutant youth meeting. 

“Yeah, I am. You have a problem with that?” 

Xeno smiled a crooked smile that showed a chipped front tooth. “Nope. Friends are always welcome at the Spiderhole.” 

Jubilee’s brow furrowed. “So, what are you saying? We attack them? Who do you think the cops will side with if someone gets hurt?” 

Mike kissed the top of her head. “No, we won’t attack first; but we’ll stand our ground. We won’t act scared.” Kids were pressing forward to hear him. “They’re freaked out by mutants; they don’t know what you can do. Let’s use that our advantage.” 

Xeno gave his arm a friendly punch. “I like the way you think.” 

Mike felt a presence looming behind him and turned to find that Wolf had come forward to stand with them. A front line had formed around him. He found that more than a little unnerving; what had he done to become so important? But then Jubilee gave him a determined nod and pressed closer to his side. He thought she had never looked hotter. 

They waited in silence, trying not to feel the cold or the fear. From around the corner, they heard tires squeal. “Here they come,” Rayen murmured.. 

“Hey, Mike,” Xeno said almost conversationally. “You busy Saturday night?” 

The cars appeared on the street. _Not just two of them this time,_ Mike noted. _Three. No, four._

His heart beat faster, but he answered Xeno as coolly as he could: “Nothing planned. What’s up?” 

The cars entered the lot at speed. 

“Plague Years are playing at the Scaramouche. You gotta hear them. Your brain’ll totally bleed.” 

_How many of the frat guys were in the cars?_ Mike wondered. _Could be as many as twenty, I guess_. “Sounds good. Does Jubes have your number?” 

“Yeah,” she said, “I’ll give it to you. After.” 

The cars screeched to a halt in front of them, the fourth sliding with a bang into the fender of the third. Doors swung open and a few of the boys stepped out, one of them brandishing a tire iron. He was a big blond in a BC Eagles hockey jacket, and he looked out at the assembled crowd of Goth kids with a sneer. 

“Wow, it’s a bigger freak show than usual.” He glanced back at his buddies for confirmation. Mike could see guys in the car staring out threateningly. Interestingly, not all were so sure about climbing out. 

Mike called, “Why don’t you guys just get back in your cars and go home. No one wants trouble here.” 

The guy in the hockey jacket guffawed at Mike’s suggestion. “You’re the trouble, mutie. And you’re right, we don’t want you!” 

It was Jubilee who yelled next. “What’s your fucking problem?! We just want to live our lives, same as you. Go back to your pub or whatever and leave us alone!” 

A tall guy with a shaved head and cold grey eyes climbed out of a car. He held a baseball bat. “Oh no, mutie! We know what you want. The movie got it right: betrayers! You’ll betray your friends, your family, your country.” He called back to his buddies. “But we’re not going to let that happen, are we?” 

The mob shouted back approval, but most still stayed in their vehicles. Mike’s mind was whirling. He and the Spiderhole gang were standing their ground just like he had said, but the situation seemed to be getting worse. What could he say to defuse the tension? His brains felt like oatmeal. 

The horrible moment of tension stretched out painfully until they all heard a car door open with a creak off to the side of the lot. Heads turned as Ludo, the tall, skinny redhead stumbled out of the little Echo. Somehow Mike had failed to notice before that his skin was orange. 

Ludo stared at the two opposing sides and blinked in confusion. Lucky, his black hair disheveled and his Kurt Cobain shirt still half off, stared out from the backseat. 

“Get that one,” the skinhead guy shouted, and someone grabbed Ludo by one orange arm, pulling him into their midst. They began shoving him from one to another like they were playing dodge ball, until he tripped and fell to his hands and knees, calling out in fright. 

“Stop it!” came a voice beside him that made Mike’s ears ring. It was Jubilee and she punctuated the exclamation by filling the air with exploding fireworks that cast the whole tableau in vivid colors. Ludo was fast, using the moment of confusion to run back to the mutant ranks. Lucky slammed the Echo’s door quickly and locked himself in. 

Another long second of stunned silence, and then the skinhead screamed a wordless battle cry and ran forward, swinging the bat high over his head. Mike froze and his vision seemed to telescope. Then suddenly Wolf pushed past him and ran to meet the thug. Mike watched in horror as the wooden baseball bat arced high in the air towards the bouncer’s bald head. But when it connected with its target, it seemed to lose integrity, turning soft as taffy in the surprised thug’s hands. Wolf kicked him hard in the ass and the skinhead ran for his car, the limp bat bouncing pathetically between his legs. 

Cheers and hoots of derision erupted from the Spiderhole gang. Wolf actually smiled. 

Assorted frat boys climbed uncertainly from the cars, not sure whether to leap into the fray or take off. But now the mutants were ready to rumble. In Mike’s estimation, their powers weren’t anything compared to Bobby’s, but small rocks were swirling through the air telekinetically, weird lights were flashing, and the kid with the vampire teeth was howling like a wolf and running at one group of attackers who scattered in panic. 

A few of the braver thugs rose up to form a new offensive line. Mike watched in amazement as Xeno stepped forward, pulled off his jacket and raised his hands high in the air. From a series of blue nodules on his bare arms, strange glowing shapes shot out like bats from a cave at sunset. The shape-creatures filled the air, emitting high wails that Mike recognized as the mystery sound on Xeno’s demo. Thugs were scattering and jumping back in their cars in utter panic. 

Across Rayen’s face, the numbers “9-1-1” glowed bright, and Mike saw them projected high onto the side of the building. Two of the cars were pulling away, trailed by a couple of galloping frat boys who hadn’t gotten aboard in time. The remaining thugs had fallen back, but were brandishing weapons with demented bravado. 

“Jubilee,” Rayen called. “They’re using their cells! They’ll get reinforcements!” 

Jubilee, who had been taking care of the traumatized Ludo, stood up — magnificent in her ringmaster’s outfit — and let loose a series of fireworks right over the thugs’ heads. Mike watched, jubilant as their cell phones sparked and shorted out, the boys dropping them in shock. 

That seemed to be the last straw. They climbed into their vehicles and followed the others out of the lot, mutant kids running after them screaming obscenities. 

Mike was dumbfounded. They had done it! All around him, kids were hugging and cheering, some laughing and crying simultaneously from the effects of delayed shock and adrenaline. 

Jubilee flew into his arms so hard, he almost fell over. She kissed him passionately and he felt their respective lipsticks sliding against each other. 

“You are the Best. Guy. Ever!” She said and followed this pronouncement with another kiss, plus tongue and ass grabbing. 

“I didn’t even do anything!” he protested. “I just stood here like a dumb fuck while you guys kicked their asses!” 

“No, Michael; you made us brave. You made us stand up for ourselves.” 

Mike was embarrassed and aroused. “I-I guess. I dunno, I just thought that, y’know…” He looked around at the smiling faces, a lot of them directed his way, and he didn’t know what to think. Maybe it was true; maybe he _had_ helped. 

“Hey, there’s another car coming,” Rayen called out. The group fell silent and Mike felt his heart start to pound again. Electric arcs sparkled around Jubilee’s fingertips. 

Then he recognized the car. “No, wait! It’s just my dad.” 

Mr. Haddad pulled into the lot and stopped in front of the assembled mutants, Goths and miscellaneous outcasts. He climbed out of his car and looked around, beaming with delight. 

“My goodness, my goodness. I’ve been driving around the neighborhood, and you are all, by far, the best costumed group so far. Happy Halloween, children!” 

 

*** 

 

Scott ran at Bobby, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him and Kitty back into the Day Room. 

“Quiet,” he barked. “We are a in a combat zone now, and you will follow my every order immediately and without question.” 

Bobby was still reeling from being busted, babbling, “Please try to understand, Scott, we —” 

“I don’t want to hear it now! And call me ‘Cyclops,’ not ‘Scott.’ We use code names in the field. Ororo is ‘Storm,’ Jean is…” he hesitated a second. “Uh, Marvel Girl.” 

“Marvel Girl?” Kitty’s eyebrows shot up. 

Scott ignored her. “Bobby, you’ve already chosen ‘Iceman,’ right? Kitty, you’ll be ‘Sprite’.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she responded, with a toss of her hair, but Scott had turned back to review the situation. Ororo or, rather, Storm was apparently back in action, as the wind picked up again and the smell of ozone filled the air. 

Scott turned back to them and ordered, “You will stay here and keep your heads down unless I specifically call for you. If you act on your own, you’re going to cause more trouble than good.” 

He left them there and returned to the nursing station. Bobby was a bit indignant. _More trouble than good?_ He had just saved Scott’s ass from getting squashed flat! 

“Sprite?!” Kitty fumed. “This guy has serious issues making up code names for women.” 

“Are you two kids all right?” 

They spun around to find Nurse Binns behind them. She put a gentle hand on their arms and said quietly, “Come this way before we get hurt.” She began pulling them back into the darkness. 

“We’re okay,” Bobby reassured her. They were being pulled into the Day Room with surprising strength, and Bobby wondered how she had freed herself. He told her, “Just take care of the patients, ma’am.” 

“Thank you, but I know just what I’m doing,” said the nurse, her tone suddenly acid. They gasped in almost comic unison as she transformed before their eyes into Mystique, her grip on their arms now painful. 

“Shit!” Kitty yelled and phased out of Mystique’s grasp, running across the demolished room and vanishing through the wall. 

“Matter phasing,” Mystique murmured. “Fascinating.” Without missing a beat, she put Bobby in a painful head and arm lock and pulled him, stumbling clumsily, back towards the nursing station. 

Bobby wrenched his head around to see the battle and gasped at the chaos of it all. Dangerous debris flew through the room magnetically or borne on mutant winds. Optic blasts lit the air and bodies connected painfully. It all seemed random and mad. How were you supposed to think under these conditions? Was this the kind of thing Scott had been training him for? Would he ever be able to fight like this? Did he even want to?! 

“Stop or I will kill this one!” Mystique shouted over the melee, hauling Bobby up onto his toes. Everything stopped. Bobby felt a wave of nausea pass over him, and he moaned as he saw Turcott, white-faced, still suspended painfully in the air. 

Jean looked terrified, and Ororo’s eyes blazed white with anger. 

“If you harm a hair on that child’s head —” she called out with chilling fury. 

“Quiet,” called Cyclops and ‘codename: Storm’ stopped immediately. 

“Let the boy go, Magneto,” he said in a calm voice. “He has nothing to do with this fight. He’s not even supposed to be here.” 

“We’re all caught in the crossfire, Cyclops — all the Mutants. Right now, the boy is making himself useful to my cause. He should be proud.” 

Scott’s hand rose to his visor, but Bobby knew that Magneto held all the cards. He felt fear overtaking his reason. 

Then a voice called out that he had forgotten all about, though it was the reason he was here. 

“Way to go, Bobby,” Lance yelled derisively. “Great little rescue you and Kitty cooked up.” Mystique’s injection seemed to have roused him. 

“Lance!” Jean called out in surprise. “Stay back, this situation is dangerous.” 

Scott looked from Lance to Bobby to Magneto, calculating angles. 

Magneto, in return, showed him utter disdain by turning his back. He walked to Lance, appraising his form. “Ahh, the tectonic manipulator. I must say, I agree with your assessment. As rescues go, theirs has been pathetic. I and my compatriots prefer to look at this evening as one of retribution. We are here to liberate the prisoners of this house of horrors and to make the one responsible pay.” 

Lance guffawed. “‘House of Horrors’; you got that right. They were going to shut me down.” 

Magneto nodded with understanding. “They’re scared of your magnificence, Lance.” 

“Yeah, they all are: Turcott, my parents, Xavier. Xavier left me here to be mutilated by him!” he pointed an accusing finger at Turcott who was turning slowly in mid-air, blood dripping down his arm where a sharp piece of metal cut into him. “The Professor abandoned me!” 

“You know that’s not true, Lance,” Scott said. “Professor X wanted you to learn control, to make good choices with your powers —” 

“THEN WHY DID HE LET THEM TAKE ME?!” Lance screamed, and the room shook like a giant roused from sleep, mumbling in confusion. Deep groans from the strained beams of the Day Room answered. 

Scott made as if to move, but stood down when Mystique yanked Bobby up again. He cried out with pain as his shoulder threatened to dislocate. 

Magneto laughed. He gestured dramatically, and the bound figure of Turcott floated down until he was in front of Lance, toes just grazing the floor. 

“Lance,” Magneto goaded. “Why don’t you show the good doctor just what you think of him and his clinic.” 

Lance’s face twisted in contempt. He spat in Turcott’s face. Turcott winced as the saliva rolled down his cheek. 

Camille had been hiding in the corner with Nurse Binns (the real nurse Binns whose hands were tied behind her) and called out, “Uncle Chris! Don’t hurt Uncle Chris!” 

Turcott’s eyes flew open and he tried in vain to turn his bound head and see the girl. In desperation he called, “Millie! Get out of here! Run and hide!” 

The girl broke from the nurse and ran into the darkened wreck of the Day Room. _Yeah, hide, kid_ Bobby thought. _At least someone might get out of this okay._

Magneto paid no attention to the interruption. “Good, Lance. What else do you have to tell the good doctor?” 

Lance stared furiously at Turcott. “You were going to cut my brains open tomorrow!” 

Magneto added, “Because you’re a Mutant, Lance, and he’s scared of you.” 

“I don’t even think you know what you’re doing; but you get a big Visa imprint and that’s all you need.” 

“You are _homo superior_ , Lance. The future.” With a wave, Magneto released Turcott’s restraints and the man fell to the floor in a heap, curling into a scared ball. 

Lance loomed over him. “As long as my dad said, ‘Here’s the money, doctor’ you didn’t care about the anything else.” 

Turcott stumbled to his feet, shaking, backing away until he was against the wall. 

“What about Alan? and Ashley?!” Lance demanded, and the room began to rumble again. Off in the corner, Bobby saw Jean grabbing patients by the hand and leading them down the corridors, away from the battle zone. “Do you think you helped them? They’re drooling idiots now!” 

Magneto’s eyes gleamed, “Dr. Christian Turcott, for crimes against _homo superior_ —” 

“And that almost happened to me!” 

“ — you have been tried and found guilty.” 

Turcott tried to speak through the trembling of the room, through his own trembling. “I-I believed I was doing the right thing! People are suffering!” 

Magneto’s voice rose in rage, “SENTENCE HAS BEEN PASSED! LANCE, CARRY OUT THE EXECUTION!” 

Scott cried out, “Lance, No!” 

Lance screamed, and an uncontrolled wave of tectonic force pushed out of him, knocking everyone to the ground except Magneto who rose several feet into the air, laughing. 

Bobby had spun free of Mystique when she lost her balance. He watched Lance falling to his knees, clutching his temples. 

“Lance!” he screamed over the noise, “Not again! Control it!” 

Lance looked up desperately and locked eyes with Bobby. He clenched his teeth and wailed terribly. 

The shaking stopped. There was a moment of shocked silence and then, from the Day Room, a horrible groan of metal and wood as the structure began to fall apart. 

“Millie!” cried Turcott, and without a moment’s hesitation, ran into the crumbling annex. Ororo, following a few feet behind could not stop him, and she hesitated at the doorway before, with a horrible crash, the ceiling of the Day Room started caving in, dust billowing out into the nursing station. 

To Bobby, it seemed the ballet of destruction went on and on, though he realized it had probably taken just a few seconds. Scott joined Ororo in the doorway trying to see in. Ororo brought up a wind to clear the dust, and Scott climbed in to the blocked entrance, trying to pull a beam loose. Suddenly pieces of debris began to float free, and Scott turned to see Jean concentrating her telekinesis to help him. 

“Your powers…?” he asked. 

“They’re back,” she said soberly. 

“Does that mean the girl —” 

“I don’t know,” Jean responded, blinking. 

“Wait,” came a strange voice. One of the patients, her eyes covered by bandages, was led forward by another patient. When she reached the doorway and stood beside Scott and Ororo, she thanked her fellow patient quietly and began to unwrap the bandages, her hand circling her head slowly and deliberately. Her eyes, when revealed, were like swirling vortices — satellite pictures of hurricanes, the lowering force deceptively lovely. 

She peered into the rubble, and it was clear to Bobby she could see something, the same way he could tell when Scott was looking at someone from behind his visor. 

In a quiet, distant voice, she said, “A mouse. Pill bugs. Spiders.” Bobby realized he was holding his breath. She stared into the rubble in silence. “That’s all. Nothing else alive.” 

He could hear exhalations around the room. He hadn’t been the only one holding his breath. Nurse Binns let out a choked sob. 

Bobby turned to look at Lance, but his former roommate was looking at the far side of the room with an expression of profound despair. Bobby turned again and saw Kitty standing against the wall, staring at Lance, tears streaming down her face. 

“Kitty!” Lance called out. “I-I didn’t mean to do that! Please, you have to believe me, I don’t want to hurt anyone.” 

“You killed them,” she said quietly and then with sudden vehemence. “Turcott and the little girl! What’s wrong with you?!” 

Tears broke from Lance’s eyes and he grabbed the top of a chair for support. “Kitty, don’t! Don’t hate me. I need you to help me! I love you, Kitty!” 

“Shut up! Shut up!” she screamed hoarsely and stumbled across the room to fall into Jean’s arms. Jean looked surprised for a moment, but then held the weeping girl tightly. 

“KITTY!” Lance screamed after her, and then Magneto was there, a hand on his shoulder. 

“Casualties of war, Lance.” He paused to consider. “No, not ‘Lance.’ That was your slave name. You are ‘Avalanche’.” The older man bestowed the new title with sincerity and weight. 

“Avalanche,” Lance repeated, though it wasn’t clear if, in his shock, he understood or not. 

“Humans want us destroyed, Avalanche. Destroyed! Just when we’re about to make wonders happen.” Somewhere in the distance, sirens could be heard. 

Lance looked desperately at Magneto, and the white-haired man smiled benignly. “Come, my boy, we will do wonders together. We will make whole what has been torn asunder.” 

Lance nodded. 

“Mystique,” Magneto called out. “It’s time we left.” 

Scott stiffened, preparing to challenge him, but then a voice spoke in their heads. 

_*Scott, let him go. You must take the team and the children, and get out before the authorities arrive.*_

_*Professor!*_ Scott sent back. _*He murdered Turcott, the girl!*_

_*And one day he will answer for those crimes, but not today. I had hoped… hoped we could still reach Erik… Never mind. Never mind; come home. All of you come home.*_

Bobby could feel the despair in Xavier’s telepathic voice. What had he hoped? Was Magneto ‘Erik’? 

“Storm, Marvel Girl, Iceman, Sprite,” Scott called brusquely. “We’re pulling out. Now.” 

“A wise decision,” Magneto replied, straightening his cloak. “Avalanche, Blob!” 

“N-no!” came a surprisingly high-pitched voice. Bobby turned to look at the boy who had been the monstrous Blob. Shaking with fear at his own defiance, he stuttered, “I-I’m not going with you. I don’t want to kill anyone.” 

Without premeditation or fear, Bobby stood up and went to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

“Then come with us.” 

“Yes,” Magneto sneered. “I think you’re more Xavier’s soft sort.” Without sparing the boy another thought, he turned and marched down the west corridor followed by Mystique and Lance Alvers, ever after known as Avalanche. 

Bobby watched the retreating figure in the flimsy hospital gown and felt a last pang of lust for the fine legs and ass that peeked out. He suddenly felt certain that he didn’t love Lance Alvers. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he had even considered the possibility. 

 

*** 

 

Charles watched/felt them running from the clinic. He penetrated the layer of their emotions, but shallowly, like a toe in the stream. It was against his beliefs to delve deeper with his powers just because he could. _Yet they are all my children_ , he thought petulantly, _I must know what they’re thinking if I’m to help them_. In disgust, he chided himself: _Monstrous ego!_

Yet feeling their pain was not just a voyeuristic thrill, but a burden of the heart as well: Ororo’s sense of justice frustrated, Jean’s of terrible waste. Bobby and Kitty ( _how had he missed their scheming? Where was his insight then?)_ in the blind singularity of their separate adolescent miseries. And Scott, not so much older, again feeling his failure like a keen blade. 

_I use his guilt,_ Charles thought miserably, floating above/around them in his non-corporeal world. _I let him bear burdens that are not his to bear so he will work harder for my dreams._

He rose away from the bright lights of the group as they approached their vehicle and drifted higher, seeking the other contact. There. Shining like stars, all three, Erik the brightest point of light, of course. Charles could not resist the temptation to touch that mind, to brush against its familiar contours. He tasted the exultation, the frustration, the bottomless anger that drove the man. He could almost reach inside, bend him to his will… if only he had more control… _Erik, you know I have to stop you…_

_*You can try, Charles, but you will not succeed. You let yourself get too distracted.*_

_*Soon I’ll be even stronger, Erik.*_

_*But old friend, you know I’ve always been one step ahead of you!*_

Like a switch had been thrown, the bright mutant mind-lights of Magneto, Mystique, and finally Lance vanished from Charles’s mentalscape. In vain he twisted in his world of thought, but they were gone, as if they had never existed. 

He cursed and felt a terrible fatigue overtake him. 

_Down, down,_ he thought and opened up his ordinary senses until he could feel the chair beneath him, smell the dank metallic scent of the air. He opened his eyes and sighed. With infinite weariness, he removed the bulky helmet of the interface and placed it beside him. He was too tired to move. How many hours had he been in Cerebro? More than ever before, yet still not enough to make a difference. 

On a tea trolley beside the control station he found a thermos of tea and a sandwich, left for him by someone on his team before they departed. Ravenously, he devoured the food. The re-entry to the physical world could be a shock. The demands of the body could only be put aside for so long before it grew resentful. 

He tried to muster up the will to leave the chamber and go up to his office. The others would soon return and there must be at least a short debrief. But he was so tired! 

So many lives at stake, he thought, but for all our power, we’ve so little power to help. 

He felt his head sink to his chest and thought, _Just a small nap. They’ll be home soon. They’ll know where to find me._

 

*** 

 

Three hours later, Bobby lay in his bed with the covers over his head, fighting off waves of nausea, his powers threatening to spike out of control in his panic and misery. 

Things had been as bad as they could have been on the way back to Westchester. The three teachers, the two truants, and the bewildered Blob (who turned out to be a runaway from Pennsylvania named Fred Dukes) had left the clinic in a hurry. The flashing lights of the emergency vehicles had been already visible through the trees as they had followed Scott across the darkened lawn to a big black vehicle — something like a Humvee, but sleeker and more futuristic. 

As he climbed aboard, Bobby had thought of Kitty’s cousin, Ezra, parked on a neighboring street, unaware that they weren’t coming back. Maybe he was waiting still. 

As they had buckled in to their heavy, padded seats, they had been silent. A terrible atmosphere of defeat and humiliation had hung over the crew. For Bobby’s part, it had felt like the definitive end of something. Childhood, maybe. Scott had barked out minimal orders while Jean drove. Ororo spoke in hushed, comforting tones to the frightened Fred. 

Bobby had scrupulously avoided all eye contact, but nonetheless, he had been able to feel the cold, brewing front of Scott’s anger. Finally, just outside Westchester, the storm had broken. 

Scott had been merciless, excoriating him and Kitty for their recklessness, thoughtlessness, selfishness. Bobby had been humiliated, trying to mouth excuses, finding himself babbling, “But Scott, I mean Mr. Summers, I mean Cyclops…” and shameful tears had burned his eyes like acid. 

Kitty had returned to catatonia; mutely taking the tongue-lashing like a rock takes the beating of the sea. No humiliation, no punishment could have cut her more deeply than Lance’s actions, than his betrayal. 

Back at the Mansion, they had been ordered to their rooms until the morning when “appropriate actions would have to be taken.” 

Despite the fact that it was after midnight, the mansion had been humming with excitement; the teachers had been spotted leaving in costume, in some kind of military vehicle. Rumor had it that they had been off on a secret mission to find the people who had put “The Betrayers” on TV and make them pay. 

Bobby had divulged nothing, had closed the door of his dorm room on the curious faces and headed straight for bed. 

Now, almost an hour later, he couldn’t sleep. The covers over his head could not shut out the parade of images before his mind’s eye: the awful, destructive entrance of Magneto, the binding and torture of Turcott, the collapse of the Day Room and Lance’s stricken face. 

And over and over, he heard Scott’s words: _You have betrayed my trust! I don’t know if you can even be allowed to continue at the school. I expected better of you, Bobby Drake!_

He sat up, sweating, a moan escaping from his dry lips. He stumbled to the fridge and drank greedily from his water bottle. He turned on his computer and paced back and forth while it booted up. 

Messenger launched automatically with startup, and he wondered if Mike could possibly be online. No, it was too late on a school night for his studious friend. Maybe he could log in on 2Gether after all these months. Maybe those old friends were still around and would still want to talk to him, despite the way he had abandoned them. Betrayed them. 

He was so wrapped up in his misery that he actually jumped when Messenger chimed. He sat down shakily at the computer and concentrated on the chat window that had popped up. 

_pyropyroburningbright says: Bobby? fuck fukfuck are you there?_

Bobby froze, unable to move for a second, re-reading the brief message two more times before he was able to respond. 

_bcube says: St. John? Hi yeah I’m here._

There was no response and Bobby almost screamed in frustration before the reply finally came through. 

_pyropyroburningbright says: Bobby, I’m in so much trouble…  
Shitfuck. help me! You have to get me out of here… NOW! _


	16. Pumpkin Stew

Bobby ran through the halls of the mansion like… Like a man with a mission? Like a maniac? Like a fool? He felt like all of these. As he hit the ground floor, he could already hear the phone ringing in the main administrative office. He darted past the infinitely patient grandfather clock at high speed and noted that it was 2:45 a.m. He’d been up for 20 hours, and the day wasn’t over yet. 

As he approached the office, he could already hear the phone ringing. He snapped on the light without breaking stride, raced to the central desk, and grabbed the receiver. 

“St. John?!” he managed between gasps. 

“Oh fuck,” came the distant voice. “I thought you weren’t going to answer.” 

“No, I’m here! Where the hell are you? What’s wrong?” 

“I’m in Brooklyn somewhere, man. They drove me here from Manhattan.” 

“Who? Did someone kidnap you or something?” Bobby was bending over the front of the desk, holding the phone in one hand and supporting himself with the other. The supporting hand was shaking. A wave of nausea and fatigue rolled over him and his stomach growled loudly. He moved around the desk and fell into the chair. 

“No, not kidnapped, man. It’s Halloween!” St. John told him, as if that explained everything. He fell silent again, and Bobby could hear him breathing in and out loudly before he spoke again. “It’s totally surreal hearing your voice, Bobby. It’s like I forgot what it sounded like until I heard it… And now it’s like I never forgot, you know?” 

Bobby totally knew what he was saying. It was like talking to a ghost who had been haunting your house for months before it finally spoke. Like in Hamlet or something. 

He focused his thoughts and spoke slowly and clearly. “St. John, you have to tell me where you are. We can come get you.” 

“I’m scared,” St. John replied, and there was something in his voice that scared Bobby, too. 

“Just tell me what’s going on so we can —” 

“They gave me something,” he whimpered. “It’s all coming at me! I’m so scared. Bobby, there’s fire everywhere. I can’t… I don’t want to…” 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” 

Bobby’s head snapped up. Scott, wearing sweats, his hair disheveled, was entering the office. He was clearly furious. 

_No! Not now!_

Bobby pleaded, “Scott, wait a second, please!” Into the phone, he said desperately, “St. John, hold on. Don’t hang up, please!” 

“Put down the phone, Bobby,” Scott said in a quiet tone full of threat. “You were told to stay in your room, and now here you are, playing some new stunt —” 

“It’s not a stunt! I-I’ve got a mutant on the line; he’s in trouble!” 

In his ear, he heard a terrified St. John: “Bobby, what’s wrong? Did they get you? Aren’t you gonna help me?” 

“Then give me the phone, Bobby, and I’ll talk to him,” Scott responded tightly and stretched out a hand to take the receiver from him. 

Bobby pulled away and dived for the floor behind the desk, clutching the receiver tightly. The telephone slid off the desk, bouncing off his back before crashing to the ground. He shouted into the receiver, “St. John, no! I’m fine. Just tell me where you are! What’s the address?!” 

Jean entered the office just as Scott was about to jump the desk to grab his recalcitrant student. “What’s happening?!” she called out. “Bobby, who are you talking to?” 

Bobby was wrapped in a ball, trying to protect the receiver. He heard St. John shout in fright, an utterly inhuman sound. “They’re coming! I gotta go! Shitshit!” 

“NO!” Bobby screamed as the line went dead. He turned furious eyes up to Scott who, with Jean holding him back, was scowling down red-faced at him. “Godammit! I lost him! You made me lose him!!” 

_*Everybody will kindly calm down!*_ came the loud telepathic command. All eyes turned to the door as the Professor wheeled in followed by an astonished Ororo. 

When Xavier spoke out loud, his voice sounded horribly weary. “Robert, please stand up. I can’t see you.” Bobby got shakily to his feet, putting the telephone back on the desk and facing the Headmaster uneasily. “Kindly tell us what’s going on. It’s been a very long night. We were forced to follow the mission with a difficult staff meeting, and none of us is in the best frame of mind.” 

“Sir, it’s St. John… Did I tell you about him? He came to the first mutant youth meeting. I-I think he’s a street kid. Well, no, he said he lived in some kind of squat or something —” 

“Get to the point, Bobby,” Scott said, visibly working to regain his cool. 

“He IM’d me — you know, Professor, on the computer. And I gave him the office number to call. He says he’s in trouble. We have to go help him, please!” 

“Where is he, Bobby?” Jean asked. 

“Brooklyn. I-I don’t know the address. There’s something wrong with him. He said they gave him something. Maybe a drug? And he talked about fire.” 

“Fire?” Scott asked. 

“Yeah. He, um, controls fire, I think. That’s his power. But I don’t know why he’s so scared.” 

Jean turned to Xavier, “If he’s been drugged, he might be having trouble controlling his pyrokinesis.” 

Xavier rolled towards them. “Ororo, can you trace the phone call?” 

“Yeah!” Bobby said excitedly. “We’ll just star-69 him!” 

Ororo moved behind the desk and looked down at a high-tech interface attached to the phone. Its black keypad and randomly blinking lights stared up, mute and uninviting. “No, Bobby, that won’t work. It’s a phone system that was designed specially for us. I think to get the previous number, we just press the command key and 1-8. Or is it 1-9?” 

They all watched as she tried various combinations. 

She swore in frustration. “Damn! This system is unnecessarily complicated.” 

“Didn’t Forge say he was writing us a manual?” Jean asked. 

Scott shook his head angrily. “He kept promising but he never got around to it.” 

Ororo sat on the desk heavily. “Oh, Goddess! What do we do now?” 

Scott switched into his commander mode as if he had never lost his cool in the first place. “Bobby, did you get the sense that this rescue was urgent?” 

“Yeah! He sounded like he was really in trouble. Like, now!” 

Xavier sighed wearily. “I’ll go back down to Cerebro and see if I can’t pick up the boy’s signature.” 

Jean said flatly, “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Charles. You are in no condition to put yourself through more psychic stress tonight. Get to bed. That’s a medical order.” 

Xavier looked like he was going to object, but he finally nodded in compliance. 

Scott checked his watch. “All right; Bobby, you’ll accompany Jean and me into Brooklyn. Ororo, try to remember how the phone works. In any case, you’ll be here if the boy calls back. We’ll stay in touch with you by X-mobile.” 

Bobby felt oddly guilty, as if it were his fault they had to go out a second time that night. He himself felt weak and shaky and he realized he hadn’t eaten any dinner. He needed some fuel. 

“Do I have a minute before we leave?” he asked cautiously. 

“Yes, we have to change. Meet us in the garage in five.” 

He went straight to the kitchen and tore open the freezer. It was strange to be the only student awake. It felt like it was still the summer before any of the other kids had arrived, and he was the solitary student — unique, everybody’s favorite. 

He nuked two frozen burritos and ran to the garage where Jean and Scott were already waiting in stylish dark clothes, Scott in a sharp leather jacket and black slacks, Jean in black denim pants and a dark maroon woolen coat. 

Bobby wolfed down the second of the hot burritos before climbing into the sleek, black Mercedes. He burped extravagantly as he sunk into the soft leather of the back seat. 

“Bobby!” A testy Jean admonished as she took the front passenger spot. 

“Sorry,” he murmured and looked at Scott’s back as he eased into the driver’s seat. Had he smiled? A good belch usually cracked him up. Would they ever get their easy rapport back? 

The smooth, hydraulic purr of the car was the only sound as they drove through the night. Bobby looked out at the sleeping world, his own eyelids heavy with fatigue. The phone call with St. John kept running through his head. _It’s all coming apart, I’m so scared…_

_“Don’t worry, I’ve got it under control,” Bobby assured him, though he felt anything but sure. St. John was on fire, his face swimming in red orange flame. Bobby was holding him tight in his arms, pumping out cold and ice, trying to keep the house from burning down around them._

_“There’s nothing you can do!” St. John shouted._

“So, he’s a pyrokinetic?” Jean asked and Bobby jerked awake. They were on the highway now. 

Bobby pulled himself up straight in his seat. “Yeah, I guess; he made this cigarette explode…” 

Scott mused. “I doubt he’s had any training other than what he’s figured out for himself. Dangerous.” 

“Where do we start looking?” Jean wondered, staring into the night. She and Scott began a discussion of Brooklyn geography, and Bobby felt himself sinking again into the soft seat. 

_“Everyone thinks I’m this fucking Molotov cocktail,” John complained. “Like I’m going to explode or something.”_

_“Mmm-hmm,” Bobby muttered in reply, his head moving rhythmically, his tongue twisting like a snake._

_St. John sounded pissed off. “I taught myself everything I need to know about my powers.”_

_Bobby didn’t reply, he was too busy swallowing the pyrokinetic’s cock. Bobby had most of it down his throat, and he was running his hands over the smooth, pale skin of St. John’s belly, marveling at the brilliant red pubes. On closer inspection (which occurred every other second) they actually turned out to be little flames!_

_“Control takes many years of dedication and discipline, St. John,” Scott told they boy sagely, and Bobby choked._

_“What are you saying, dickwad?” St. John barked at the teacher. “That I don’t have discipline?!”_

_Bobby wanted to die. He and St. John were stark naked on the floor of Scott’s office. Busted! Still, Bobby somehow knew that he’d be in even worse trouble if he bailed on the blowjob before his friend came._

“Anything, Storm? Has the boy called back?” Scott asked and Bobby awoke again, his heart pounding, his hard dick bent double in his pants. He quietly slipped a hand in to adjust himself. 

From a sleekly-designed, ‘X’-branded communication module in the dashboard and through the car’s high-end sound system came Ororo’s surround-sound voice. “Nothing, Cyclops, but I’m going to have a thing or two to say to Forge tomorrow about his obtuse system. Wait a minute, I just checked the EMS bands. Police, Fire and Ambulance responded 20 minutes ago to a blaze in Park Slope.” 

Jean said, “That’s not far from here. It could be our pyrokinetic. Look!” 

Bobby followed the direction of her pointing finger to the billowing smoke and reddish light that rose above the buildings a few blocks to their left. 

“Thanks, Storm,” Scott said and spun the wheel. “We’re on our way. Cyclops out.” 

The car hummed like a cat. Bobby didn’t know much about cars, but he was starting to realize that everything associated with the teachers’ secret missions was astonishingly cutting edge. Not to mention ‘X’-branded. 

“Who’s this Forge, anyway?” he asked, leaning forward between Scott and Jean. 

“Never mind,” Scott snapped. “Why isn’t your seat belt on?” 

“You’ll meet him tomorrow, Bobby,” Jean explained gently, again playing _yin_ to Scott’s _yang_. “The Professor will be addressing the school about… about a lot of things.” 

Bobby leaned back again and digested this fact in silence as he did up his seat belt. The missions to Christian Turcott’s clinic — both official and unofficial — seemed to have marked a change in their lives. What would tomorrow bring? Bobby shuddered as if he were cold, but he didn’t get cold anymore so it was just nerves and fatigue. He stared into the night, wishing St. John would magically appear on every corner they passed. 

The streets weren’t completely deserted, but they had a sad post-party vibe to them. Halloween decorations could still be seen in some windows, though they had been unplugged, leaving shadowy ghost faces staring out wistfully into the night. From time to time they passed a smashed jack o’ lantern, pummeled into pumpkin stew by wise-guy youths who thought the holiday meant a license to vandalize. 

“Wow,” exclaimed Scott as he turned a corner and pulled the car to a smooth, hydraulic stop at the curb. Down the block, a three-story brownstone was thickly spewing smoke and flames. Fire trucks were pouring on the water in what seemed an act of foolish optimism. Curious residents of the street stood on their stoops, warm jackets pulled on over pajamas, faces dancing in the swirling red lights of the rescue vehicles. 

Jean looked worried. “Do you think the boy did this?” 

Later on, Bobby couldn’t say how he had known — it was just a figure in the darkness, almost a silhouette in the mouth of the dark alley — but before he knew what he was doing, he was out of the car, running across the road until he stood in front of the St. John Allerdyce. It was and wasn’t the same cocky guy who had come to the group meeting that night in June. That kid had been full of dark humor and burning anger. Now the face was thinner and the clothes seemed to hang off his frame in a way that said he hadn’t eaten well in a long time. His hair was longer and there was something weird about his eyes, like they were swimming in a pot nothing, seeing somewhere else. 

“Bobby,” St. John breathed, like he was identifying a picture in a book. His hand reached halfway across the distance between them, but then he staggered back a step and just stared. He was wearing some kind of costume: floppy liver-spotted felt ears attached to a hair band, a black rubber bulb of a nose and a too-tight pink t-shirt that read “Run, Spot, Run!” 

The absurdity of it, the relief at finding him made Bobby laugh. “Uh, nice outfit.” 

St. John reached up and felt the ears, tugging them off awkwardly and letting them drop to the ground. “They made me wear this. They thought it was pretty funny. They made me take the stuff. Swallow it.” Bobby stopped smiling as John’s expression grew more troubled. “I told them not to; that it was dangerous. The fire! They had all these fireplaces, and I told them not to give me the hit! The fire was talking to me and it had these faces!” 

Bobby felt anger rising in him at these unnamed men who had scared St. John so badly. He reached over and pulled the rubber nose off the boy’s face. St. John looked at the black object in Bobby’s hand with evident horror and screamed. 

Jean was suddenly there beside them. “St. John, my name is Jean. I’m a doctor. I’m also a mutant — a telepath. I’m going to touch you. You’ll hear my voice in your head; don’t be afraid.” John cringed, but allowed her to put a hand on his face. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Bobby said miserably. “He said they made him take something!” 

“Quiet a minute, Bobby,” Jean said. She was concentrating, looking into St. John’s eyes, moving her fingers into different configurations on the side of his head. 

St. John moaned and seemed to cycle through many emotions in the next minute. He was muttering, and sometimes Bobby could just make out the words: “…fire… you can’t make me… _shut up, you’re not real!_ ” 

Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and seemed to calm down. 

“Good,” Jean said. “Does that feel better, St. John?” 

“Call me John,” he said in a groggy voice. “Yeah, better.” 

Bobby became aware of Scott standing beside them. “What’s wrong with him?” his teacher asked Jean. 

“It looks like they gave him LSD. I’m using his brain’s chemistry to help control some of cognitive effects and the panic, but he needs to rest.” 

“John,” said Scott and it seemed to take the boy a few seconds to focus on his face. “The men who hired you tonight, do you think they all got out of the house safely?” 

_Hired him?_  
Bobby caught his breath, the implication of the words sinking in.

John answered in a voice so quiet, they had to lean in to hear him. “I don’t know; I think so. Someone grabbed me and pushed me out the door. I stayed for a minute and they were all… running out… but then I took off.” 

From the street came the sound of a small explosion and shouts of surprise. John pushed forward to see, but Scott stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get out of here before any of them IDs you to the cops.” 

John whirled around and stretched out an arm in Bobby’s direction. “Bobby! Is Bobby coming with us?!” 

Bobby was frightened by the intensity of John’s need. He stared at the proffered hand without taking it. He forced a smile. “Of course I am, John. You’re coming home with us.” 

“Home…” John whispered and let Scott hustle him off to the car. 

Bobby couldn’t follow. He suddenly saw just how little he knew about St. John Allerdyce, how limited the parameters of his fantasy had been, how great a gap existed between his own safe, suburban upbringing and the life John had lived. He realized that Jean was still there with him, waiting. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be scared, Bobby. He’s been hurt; he needs our help.” 

Bobby looked down, ashamed and noticed the battered leather portfolio. It was the same one John had pulled the poem from all those months before, the poem that Bobby still had in his room. He bent down and picked it up, holding it carefully shut to contain the loose scraps of paper that were all but exploding from within. John had almost forgotten it… and Bobby had saved it for him! He held it tightly to his chest as another wave of shaky fatigue passed over him. 

“Ready?” Jean asked as Scott pulled the car up across from the alleyway and honked. 

They drifted home to Westchester in a kind of trance, each boy in one corner of the back seat, both nodding off. Bobby would awaken for a moment to see John’s soft face responding to some dream, his lips parted as if to say something. Bobby found the face piercingly beautiful. And sometimes Bobby would awaken to find John’s eyes open, staring at him, something between desire and bottomless sorrow in those brown eyes, and the boys would hold the gaze until they fell again into sleep. 

In this daze they climbed the front steps of the mansion, and then the stairs up to the boys’ dorms. Some part of Bobby’s brain heard Scott tell him that classes were cancelled the next day, and that they should come down by lunchtime. And then they were in Bobby’s room, and they were clumsy and awkward, swirling in a vertigo of fatigue. How strange it was that St. John Allerdyce should be standing there, right there on Bobby’s scrap of carpet by the stripped bed that had been occupied once upon a time… by who? Bobby couldn’t focus. 

He and John seemed to stumble in a zombie’s dance, until their shoulders bumped and John began to fall. Bobby caught him, one hand on his back, one on his long, fine neck, the graceful tumble of brown hair grazing the back of his hand. And in that connection, an explosion: fire and ice calling to each other across the void of ephemeral flesh, cataracts opening in the glacier to reveal volcanoes, fiery snowstorms that could raze everything human to the ground, leaving only these two souls, floating in infinity. It was elemental telepathy; and in that moment, all things were known, past and future. And it was beautiful and terrible, and Bobby would have pulled away, run for cover if it weren’t for the urgent call of the flesh. 

Entangled suddenly, painfully, they gripped each other hard, fighting to hang on as if there was no handhold but each other to keep them from falling into the void. John’s fingers were in Bobby’s mouth and his hand down Bobby’s pants, and then the pants were open and they were on the floor, two erections that were mad with need, and each one’s madness was answered by the other. And the cries sounded like desperation and exultation, the orgasm a pure primal shout — inevitable, obliterating: 

_I found you!_


	17. All Saints Day

**BOOK 3: The Ballad of Bobby and John**

Eons passed and continents drifted into new configurations before Bobby awoke on the floor with the late morning sun in his eyes. His arm was asleep beneath him, his back stiff; there was dried cum on his exposed stomach, and his mouth tasted like the last stages of putrefaction. He rolled over with a groan, and there was St. John Allerdyce. The boy was curled up asleep on the floor next to the empty bed, still in his jeans and the ridiculous pink doggy shirt, snoring quietly. Bobby got to his feet as silently as he could, did up his pants, straightened his t-shirt, and slipped out of the door. 

He had a working plan for getting through the next minutes of uncertainty: _don’t think about anything and keep moving_. The plan worked well enough until Sam Guthrie and Doug Ramsey came into the boys’ bathroom while he was peeing. 

“Bobby!” Sam shouted, and they crowded around. “Holy shit, you have to tell us everything!” 

Doug chimed in. “Kitty won’t talk. She just said something about you going to rescue Lance.” 

“And that other mutant kid you brought home —” 

“Are you and Kitty going to be expelled?” 

“Doug, shut up!” 

“Sorry… Oh! And we heard there was a firefight and a whole block in Brooklyn got burned down!” 

“Guys!” Bobby yelled, pressing himself closer to the urinal. “Back off, I can’t pee.” The boys retreated a few steps, and Bobby concentrated on his task. “It was just one house on fire, not a whole block.” 

“Did the teachers start the fire?” Doug asked in awe. 

“No, this wasn’t an X-Men mission like at the clinic,” Bobby explained cautiously as he zipped up, his brain racing to pre-edit his story. All of the events of last night seemed to be loaded with booby traps. One wrong word and they’d blow up in his face. 

“X-Men?!” Sam exclaimed. “Is this about the costumes and shit?” 

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded. This, at least, was a safe and distracting topic. “The teachers are, like, a whole action strike force!” 

Sam’s right hand punched his left. “Damn! That is so fucking cool! This is the best school ever!” 

They moved closer and Doug asked, “So you and Kitty tried to get Lance back?” 

_Uh-oh,_ Bobby’s stomach lurched. _Dangerous topic #1_. “Uh, Kitty had a plan, but it didn’t work. We, uh, went there and —” 

Sam was all but bouncing with excitement. “And then the teachers… what’d you call them? X-Men? They showed up to help?” 

They stepped from the bathroom into the hall. Bobby was planning an escape back to his room, but the other two were practically stepping on his heels. “No, they didn’t know we were even there. They came because of this powerful old mutant!” 

“Right! Magneto!” Sam enthused. 

Bobby was bewildered. “You… You know about Magneto?” 

“Sure,” Sam told him. “From Fred. He was kind of shy at first, but he told us the whole story.” 

Bobby had forgotten about the previous night’s other rescue: Blob, a.k.a. Fred Dukes. He wondered if the kid had said anything incriminating about him. For instance the way he had been captured by Mystique like a total pussy. 

Doug jumped in: “I already knew about Magneto! They talk about him a lot on the GenePool. Someone even posted his ‘Manifesto on the Future of _homo superior._ ’ He’s like this really powerful old guy —” 

Bobby nodded. “Yeah, but until you see him, you don’t really know! He’s got this kind of scary cool thing going. And he used magnetic force to bend the walls apart and —” 

“Bobby?” The three boys turned and there was John standing in the door of the dorm room, wearing just his jeans. _Dangerous Topic #2 — in the flesh._ “You, uh, coming back soon?” 

Bobby felt his heart pound. He was again slain by the beauty of the face — the cherub’s lips, the wolf’s eyes, the poet’s long, romantic hair. But he also saw how the ribs stuck out, how pale and shaky John looked. How had this happened? What kind of nightmares had the guy been through? 

Bobby suddenly realized that everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to speak. “Oh, yeah. Be right there. Uh, guys. This is John. John, Sam and Doug.” 

“Hey,” said Sam. 

“Hey, John,” echoed Doug. 

John didn’t answer except with a short nod. His eyes said don’t mess with me as he pulled himself behind the safety of the door and it slid closed with a click. The three boys stared at the closed door in awkward silence, which Bobby finally broke. 

“Um, what time is it?” 

“11:43:52,” Doug answered without checking a watch. 

Bobby forced a smile. “Okay, I’m just gonna talk to John a minute, and then we’ll come downstairs. See you at lunch.” 

Sam and Doug were slow to depart, trying to peek into the room for another glimpse of the new boy as Bobby ducked back inside. He closed the door decisively in their faces. John was sitting rigidly on the empty bed, staring into his portfolio which was open on his lap. 

“Hi,” Bobby said with too much intensity, his back pressed against the door. “Did you, uh, sleep okay?” John smirked, still not looking up. He forced himself to continue. “Do you feel better? I mean, you know, not still ‘tripping’?” 

John looked up at him, and when their eyes connected, Bobby accidentally inhaled some spit and started coughing. The half-naked boy waited for him to recover and then said, “Yeah, I feel better.” They held the look for a minute before turning away simultaneously in mutual embarrassment. 

Bobby moved to his desk and absently shuffled papers around while John dropped his eyes back to his lap and began sorting through the scraps of writing. 

“You still have that,” Bobby said after a minute. “The folder, I mean.” 

“Yeah. I think… Did you grab it last night? I sort of remember —” 

Bobby felt a thrill that John realized he had saved his precious book. Non-chalantly, he replied, “Yeah, no big deal. You still writing? Poems and stuff?” 

“Uh-huh, a lot. You still have the one I gave you?” 

“Yeah, yeah. For sure. Look, there it is.” He pointed proudly at the sheet on his bulletin board, the one had that had so embarrassed him when Kitty had spotted it. 

John nodded with unconvincing lack of interest. “Yeah, I rewrote that a few times since then.” 

“Oh.” Bobby could come up with no more conversational gambits, and both were left to flip pages for another minute. He glanced worriedly at the clock. He left his safe spot by the desk and went to his dresser, pulling out a clean towel. 

“We have to go down for lunch soon. I thought maybe you’d want a shower.” 

John looked relieved that there was a plan of action. “Yeah, that sounds good.” 

“Um, do you want some fresh socks? A t-shirt? Underwear?” Bobby blushed as he rummaged in the dresser for the items. 

John stood up and came to collect the towel and clothes. “Thanks, I’ll take the socks and shirt. I don’t usually use underwear.” 

“I noticed,” Bobby murmured. A brief pause and they both cracked up. Bobby felt breath returning to his body for the first time that morning. John was standing in front of him, two inches shorter, close enough to smell. Was it Bobby’s imagination, or could he feel the heat rising off the boy? 

“The bathroom is just down the hall, third door on the left.” 

John suddenly looked unsure. “Um, are you gonna shower, too? Why don’t you show me…? I mean, where the bathroom is.” 

“Oh yeah, sure, of course.” He laughed nervously. “I must smell like a goat.” He froze for a second and then, with sudden haste, pulled out clean clothes for himself, grabbed his towel off the back of the desk chair, and led them from the room. 

In the bathroom, John started undressing, and Bobby quickly ducked into a shower stall at the far end of the row, his blood racing. He undressed in the cubicle and turned on the water, hot and loud. It took him only about 30 seconds to jack himself to an explosive climax, and another minute to steady himself. 

He emerged dressed and calm five minutes later to find John putting on the snowboarding t-shirt he had given him. Bobby gave the skinny boy a full-on Drake Special smile and said, “Ready?” 

They headed out into the hall, and John suddenly looked back towards Bobby’s room. “Hey, you forgot to lock your door!” 

“What? We don’t lock doors here,” Bobby said, surprised. “We trust each other.” He looked back at John who was surveying the hall nervously, like he was expecting some threat to come around the corner and waylay them. “You’re safe, John. You’re one of us now.” 

It was almost 12:30 when they got down to the dining hall. They were the last to arrive for lunch. The sound of voices seemed to rise and fall like restless waves. Heads were peeking around in suspicion and then pressing together in low conference. Overnight, the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters had become a world of secrets and rumors. 

Kitty and Rahne were seated alone at a table near the door, and Bobby overheard a snatch of conversation before he was noticed. 

“Never again, Rahne, I swear.” 

“That’s what I’m saying, too, Kitty. I can’t! Not ever!” 

“Oh Rahne, that’s not the same at all. You can’t seriously mean that you —” 

Kitty then caught sight of Bobby and John, and stared at them suspiciously. Bobby gave a nervous smile in greeting, but she turned away abruptly. He felt like he’d been slapped. He knew this game of Kitty’s from the time after Lance’s departure, and he didn’t like it one bit. He was good enough at blaming himself for everything without her unsolicited help. 

They carried on further into the room, and the noise notched down. Everyone stared, some murmuring “Hi, Bobby” as they passed, including Fred Dukes who gave him a shy wave. John was glued so tightly to his side, Bobby almost tripped on his feet a couple of times. “Tense as a rabbit at a greyhound convention,” Sam would have said. 

Bobby dared himself to look up at the teachers’ table, and there, too, all eyes were on him; all except Scott who seemed to be concentrating very hard on dissecting his cutlet. One set of eyes belonged to a stranger who was leaning close to Ororo, apparently asking her about them. He was a tall, muscular man with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a carefully trimmed goatee. From his eyes and coloring, Bobby thought he might be Native American. His right hand seemed to be made of metal. 

John continued to be Bobby’s shadow as they picked up their trays of food and moved to join the table where Doug and Sam were sitting along with Terry, Dani and Neal. 

Before lunch was through, everyone had stopped by their table to meet John, who seemed to slowly unwind from his tight-coiled unease into mere wariness. Reactions to the strange boy ranged from friendly to shy. Dani and Terry both seemed more than a little attracted which pissed Bobby off, especially when Terry got all breathless and giggly. 

Neal, in contrast was only coldly polite. Bobby had always smelled the ugly scent of rich boy superiority on him, and now he seemed to be taking the John’s measure and finding him wanting. This pissed Bobby off worse than the giggling, especially since it caused John to retreat again into silence. 

Given John’s minimalist approach to talking, it fell to Bobby to describe his power to anyone who asked. He also offered a short version of the rescue, leaving out incriminating details about what the pyrokinetic had been doing at the house in Brooklyn in the first place. In return, Bobby learned with horror about the anti-mutant bias of “The Betrayers,” and the shock the broadcast had sent through the Mansion. 

“Students!” came Xavier’s voice from the front of the hall and everyone’s head turned. 

As if they hadn’t already shut up, Scott added, “Could we have complete quiet and all eyes up here.” 

“Thank you, Scott,” Xavier said graciously. “It is time for some serious discussion. The past few days have brought about a great deal of change, and we at this school must respond quickly and decisively. I will be honest; the staff and I are improvising, and I can only hope that our decisions are all for the best. In any case, it has become apparent to me that honesty and openness with you, our students, is the best course.” 

The room was so quiet that Bobby could hear the creaking of the old oak tree outside the window as it shifted in the wind. Xavier, having gotten their attention with this dramatic introduction, now took the time to wheel out from behind the teacher’s table and move into the center of the room among them. Kitty and Rahne rose from their remote spot and took seats among the rest of the student body. 

“Last night saw several important events take place, events you are now aware of, either through your participation in them or through the very active rumor mill that has been in operation for the last 12 hours. I will attempt to clarify the facts and to correct any misapprehensions you may have. 

“Most of you were present for the broadcast of an inflammatory motion picture last evening. I feel great sadness — though not a great deal of surprise — that the mood in America is conducive to the dissemination of such gross lies in the name of entertainment. I am currently working with civil rights organizers and mutant activists to mount a protest in New York, the day after tomorrow. We need to send a clear message to the Network and the public that such a program is nothing more than an incitement to violence across the country. 

“It has already come to our attention that following the program, there was a rash of anti-mutant attacks across the country, both in the form of Internet bullying and physical violence. A fringe group calling itself ‘The Friends of Humanity’ has all but declared war on mutantkind. This situation cannot be allowed to escalate.” 

Bobby was listening carefully, but with a strange sense of detachment. He knew that if this had been yesterday, he would have been completely focused and riding the emotional waves of the Professor’s words. Today, however, he seemed to see everything through a filter that was John Allerdyce. He kept covertly checking out John’s reaction to Xavier’s speech and wondering what he made of the charismatic old man. 

“Sadly, the clear moral ground of our cause was muddied by last night’s attack on the clinic of Christian Turcott and by the death of the doctor and a young mutant patient.” 

Eyes turned towards him and Kitty, and short bursts of hushed comments filled the air. Bobby felt himself blushing. He turned to Sam and whispered, “Is it in the news today?” 

“You better believe it,” Sam replied dourly. 

“Already, those worried about the very existence of mutants are using the incident to call for limitations to our personal freedom. Given the violence of last night’s attack, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for this view. Our task must be to appeal to those willing to listen to reason. We must show them that there are mutants ready to contribute their abilities to the betterment of our world. We must be given a chance to fully and openly integrate into mainstream society.” 

“But sir…” The treble voice belonged to Doug Ramsey. “Magneto says in his manifesto that there can be no positive outcome from a policy of integration — that mutants will either be eliminated or forced into slavery if we, um, neuter ourselves to please flatliners.” 

“That’s an ugly word, Doug,” Ororo chastised. “I don’t like to hear it anymore than I do ‘mutie’.” 

“Where did you read Magneto’s manifesto, Douglas?” Xavier asked quietly, but there was a sense of grave concern underlying the question. 

The boy grew timid at the uncomfortable. “On the GenePool forum, sir. Someone posted it and I… um, I translated it into a few other languages for the mutants who couldn’t read it.” 

“You did what?!” Scott demanded. “Do you realize the harm his propaganda can do?!” 

“Scott, please,” Xavier cut in and sighed. “If the stopper is already out of the bottle, there is little sense in trying to corral the vapor. No, the time has come for openness and transparency. We are caught up in an ideological battle, and you children must learn all you can so you can make your own moral judgments. Starting next week, we will study and debate all sides of this issue including Magneto’s writings. Needless to say, I do not agree with his methods, or believe all his conjectures. I fear that his true goal, like that of the so-called Friends of Humanity, is to start a war.” 

The word ‘war’ flowed over the group like a chill wave. Bobby found himself thinking of the mayhem of the previous night’s battle. Was that kind of violence his future? Did he want it to be? He saw John lean across the table to Doug. 

“Hey, can you get me a copy of the manifesto?” 

“Sure, give me your email after.” 

Xavier continued, his voice growing passionate. “We must strive to prevent this conflict! Violence begets violence until no one remembers who struck first; they know only revenge… which leads me to the most difficult part of my talk today. 

“Children, you have come to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters without full knowledge of what we do here. From the time when Mister Summers, Doctor Grey and Hank McCoy first came to Westchester as my students, I had two goals in mind. The first was to educate the finest of mutant minds to become leaders of society and exemplars of the contributions mutants could make in the fields of science, philosophy and culture. However, I also had a second, more ethically difficult goal: to create a covert team of powerful mutants to respond to physical threats on our community and, eventually, to threats on world peace. 

“Well, that particular cat has escaped the bag, hasn’t it? By now, you are all aware that your teachers left last night in an unsuccessful attempt to avert the tragedy that happened in Poughkeepsie. I apologize for having misled you and your families. At the time, it seemed the best course of action. In retrospect, I see that it was foolish to think that I could hide this aspect of our work, and I will be approaching most of your parents in the coming days to apprise them of our full mission. 

“I fear that some of them will choose to withdraw you from school. I can only tell them and you that in the coming months of uncertainty, this institution might well be the safest place for a young mutant to be living.” 

No one spoke, though the students seemed to lean closer to each other. Bobby watched John staring in fascination at Xavier, his nervousness apparently forgotten. 

“What does this mean for you? In the short term, nothing. I hope that you will continue to dedicate yourself to your studies and to impress me as you have thus far. Your primary concern should be academic, though you will inevitably be drawn deeper into the fight for our rights as it unfolds around you.” 

Sam Guthrie stood suddenly. “Professor, if there’s trouble — if we’re threatened here at the school, or if _any_ mutants are threatened _anywhere_ , I want to fight! I want to be an X-Man!” This announcement sent a torrent of murmurs through the group, and some heads nodded in agreement. 

Jean called out a bit embarrassed, “Sam, we’re not really called the X-Men.” 

“Whatever,” Sam replied earnestly. “Just get me a uniform and I’m in.” 

Scott rose from his place. “Thank you, Sam. That’s really brave of you. As you know, your physical education training includes self-defense. I believe that this is a good thing for every young mutant to learn, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking out for future members of our team. However, no student will ever be part of the missions we undertake. After you turn 18 and graduate, you can choose that course. I will be happy to talk with any of you about this path any time you want.” 

Xavier picked up the ball. “But let me remind you that you can serve mutantkind with your minds as well as with your powers. There is no shame in a future that does not include paramilitary fighting. 

“Events are accelerating. We have with us today the first of what I’m sure will be many young mutant refugees. Please treat Mr. Dukes and Mr. Allerdyce as welcome guests, and help make their stay with us a pleasant one.” He smiled graciously at each of the boys. John nodded back at Xavier seriously. 

Bobby, for his part, felt a wave of panic run through him, and he had to quell the urge to throw his arms protectively around John. _Xavier doesn’t plan on enrolling him at the school!_ He just thinks this is a temporary rescue operation! Why had Bobby assumed otherwise? He wanted to kick himself. John wasn’t a hand-picked prize student! He was just a runaway… a _hustler_ , for fuck’s sake! Bobby’s brain spun like a top. There had to be a way to secure John a place here… _there had to be!_

Xavier continued. “I would also like you to welcome an old friend, Mr. Forge, who will be working at the school for a few weeks, helping us improve our security arrangements.” The stranger at the teacher’s table cracked a bright smile and raised the metal hand in the air. He gave a friendly wave, and then the joints of the hand extended in various complex, mechanical maneuvers, and the whole assemblage rotated several times on his wrist. Gasps and murmurs of “cool” circulated in the room. 

Xavier smiled at the effect of Forge’s party trick. He turned back to the room and said, “I am sorry to have dropped all this on you so suddenly. Perhaps I knew this day would come, but I didn’t think it would be this soon. As Ms. Monroe will tell you in class, history does not always give us as much warning as we would like. 

“The teachers and I must meet for the remainder of the day. Right now, I would like to ask a favor of you, Mr. Drake.” 

Bobby’s head snapped up in surprise. “Yes, sir?” 

“I want the students to accompany you to the arboretum, and for you to facilitate one of your peer discussion groups. I am sure everyone has a lot to say about the events of last night and about today’s announcements. It is important, students, that you support each other, especially in trying times. The friends you make here could well save your lives.” 

Kitty spoke then and there was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice. “Do we have to attend the group session, Professor?” Bobby felt a stab of betrayal in her words. 

It was Scott who answered. “Attendance is mandatory. It’s two o’clock now. The peer support group will meet until 4 p.m. At that point, Kitty, I would like to see you in Professor Xavier’s office. Bobby, the Professor and I will talk to you at 4:30.” 

Bobby’s back stiffened. “Yessir,” he answered, more loudly than he needed to. 

People rose from their seats, already discussing the news animatedly, and Ororo had to yell over the rising hubbub: “Just because classes are cancelled today does not mean that history papers are not due tomorrow!” 

As they walked from the hall, John said to Bobby, “I take it this isn’t your typical day at the School for Young Grifters?” 

Bobby didn’t respond. He was working to get his facilitator head on, but his mind was abuzz with all of Xavier’s news, with worries about what would happen later with X and Scott and, most of all with John’s tenure at the school. Suddenly, Terry was on John’s other side, and several other students were also forming a loose clump around them. 

“Hey, John,” she asked. “Could you maybe show us your powers?” 

John seemed to have relaxed. He immediately became a character, coming to a halt with his hands on his hips and rolling his eyes. “Bobby, does everyone have to do the performing monkey thing?” He had a smirk on his face that charmed Bobby and made him forget his worries for a minute. 

“Well, they do if they want to copy Terry’s physics homework, which is usually worth it.” 

“Come on, John,” the girl pleaded. 

He pulled out his shiny Zippo lighter and started making the top clink with flicks of his wrist. “Well… I suppose a guest has to sing for his supper around here, so…” With a smooth, showman’s gesture, he struck a flame off the Zippo. The hand with the lighter descended just as his other hand rose up, grabbing the fire and spinning it into a little ball. He lifted the fireball high over their heads and placed in the air, inches from his hand, where it hung like a little sun. 

Terry ‘oohed,’ and John let them be impressed for a few seconds before he squeezed his fist shut. The flame split into three golf ball size spheres which began to tumble towards his face. With one, two, three puffs of air, like he was blowing out birthday candles, he extinguished the flames and bowed. The group burst into applause and he smirked again, tossing his long hair with delight. Bobby felt a thrill go through him, from his smile down to his loins. 

Neal and Peter were passing by, and Neal turned and said, “No energy-releasing powers may be used in the mansion, John.” He and Peter walked on. John’s smile dropped and his eyes grew hard, staring at Neal’s retreating back. 

“Prick,” he muttered, and those around him pretended they hadn’t heard. 

“Well,” Bobby responded quietly, “that is the rule, I guess. Safety first, right?” He looked sheepishly into John’s accusing eyes and spoke up hurriedly to the group. “Hey, everyone, let’s get to the arboretum.” 

Under the sheltering boughs of Ororo’s trees and shrubs, the group arrayed itself on chairs, cushions, and a couch they had carried in. Bodies sat alone or bodies leaned on bodies, configurations that amounted to wordless gestures of support. 

Peter entered last, escorting a zombie-like Jones who seemed not to know where he was. Peter led the boy to a seat on the floor and then moved to sit at Bobby’s left. 

Bobby leaned over and asked him quietly, “What’s with Jones? He’s more out of it than usual.” 

“Scott got fed up with him sneaking downstairs at night and cut him off all television,” Peter answered. “He’s not even allowed in the rec room. Since then he’s been totally withdrawn.” 

Doug joined them and added, “I don’t think he’s sleeping at all. Every time I wake up; he’s just sitting there in bed, staring. Maybe he’s depressed.” 

“And I don’t think he’s the only one,” Peter observed soberly. They followed his gaze to where Kitty and Rahne sat together like twin portents of doom. 

Bobby took a centering breath to stave off the panic that was moving in like the tide. He was supposed to run this meeting, but he didn’t know how to deal with everyone’s traumas. In fact, all he really cared about was getting John into the school! 

He found an encouraging smile somewhere inside himself and addressed the group. “Okay, who wants to begin?” 

Sam, lounging on the floor, his back against Terry’s legs, drawled, “My summary: everything in the last 24 hours totally sucked and was, coincidentally, totally cool. That is all.” 

Terry bashed him on the head with a magazine. “That is not all, you big jerk. And you were just as messed up as the rest of us last night after the show.” 

“How did it make you feel, seeing it?” Bobby asked her, his usual lame question, he realized. He thought how he should asking John what subjects he had been good at in school. For that matter, when was the last time John _was_ in school? 

“I felt dirty,” Terry answered. “Like I was some kind of freak. Like I was what they said there.” 

“But that’s bullshit!” Sam responded. “You’re not one of the _Betrayers_! You would never hurt someone you loved just because you’re a mutant.” 

“Let’s try to be supportive instead of confrontational, Sam,” Bobby cautioned. 

Terry ignored this advice herself and kicked Sam away from her legs. He sprawled on the ground and glared up at her. She shouted, “You don’t know anything! I did hurt people. When my powers were just coming in, I once screamed at my parents. I don’t even remember what it was about; wanting to stay up late or something stupid. I brought the ceiling down on their heads! My mother broke her arm, and my dad was all cut up.” 

Sam retorted, “But you didn’t mean it! It wasn’t like a plan, Terry!” 

“No, genius, but I still felt like a dangerous freak, and the movie made me remember that, okay?!!” 

Doug leaned over to Fred and whispered, “Don’t worry, they’re secretly in love with each other; they always fight like that.” 

Bobby waved his arms in the air. “Okay, turn it down a notch, guys. You’re both making valid points. The show was a bunch of lies, but it still made us think of the ways we could hurt people with our powers.” _Maybe_ , he thought, _I could promise the Professor I’d tutor him, and push him to really excel! Why is the Professor so stuck up about who gets into his stupid school, anyway? He’s as bad as Neal!_

Peter spoke up in a quiet voice which, nonetheless, seemed to carry as much weight as his physical presence. “For me it was something different; or maybe something more.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “It made me think that no matter how supportive my family is, deep down they must still feel I’m not one of them. That I’m this… other thing that came into their lives. Like a curse.” 

Dani put a hand on his arm. “Peter, your family doesn’t think that. I met them; they love you.” 

Peter looked down, “Then maybe it’s just in my head, but that’s how I feel. Like they look at me and wish I was normal.” 

“Stop hoping for normal. Just give it up.” It was John who had spoken. Everyone looked around, surprised at the forceful, bitter tone of the newcomer. “No one who knows we’re mutants is ever going to think we’re normal. No matter how nice they are, or how nice we are to them, they’re still going to be scared of us.” 

Roberto clucked his tongue. “That is not very, what is the word? Supporting to Peter.” 

“So what? It’s true,” John answered. “If you don’t know where the snakes are hiding, how are you going to survive in the woods?” 

Neal responded instantly. “You fight to survive. That is the most important thing we saw today. Mr. Summers and the other teachers, they are not just academics; they are warriors for the mutant cause. That is what we must all be!” 

Doug shook his head and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Uh, no thanks. I’m not about to go up against some goon in the Friends of Humanity one-on-one. I’m just a computer geek.” 

“And that’s nothing to be ashamed of, Doug,” Kitty told him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Neal! What if the whole country turns against us? Are you going to fight everyone? And is that how you want to spend the rest of your life?” Her voice was rising higher. “Hiding in shelters, waiting for them come?” 

Neal answered her, his voice tightening. “Well, I won’t stand idly by while they come and kill my friends, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I want to be an X-Man! I want to fight!” 

“I just want this not to be happening,” Kitty shouted back, and there were tears in her eyes. 

“Please, guys,” Bobby pleaded. “This process is useless if we don’t try and support each other! Okay, Dani, you had something to say?” 

The meeting returned to an even keel, but Bobby had more and more trouble focusing. He kept hearing himself repeating, “…and how did that make you feel?” but eventually he wasn’t even sure what he was responding to. His eyes kept going to John, his brains spinning in neutral as he struggled for a strategy that would keep him in Westchester. 

He completely missed the build up to Rahne’s meltdown. She had been talking quietly, head lowered so that she was all but inaudible, when she suddenly raised her head and shouted, “The wolf is a _demon!_ ” She was shaking like a leaf, her hand working spasmodically through the beads of her rosary. “I-I have a demon inside me, and it-it looks like the Beast! It turns me into the Beast! When I give in and transform, I feel it take over. It destroys my humanity, my mind. It makes me want things… want to _do_ things…” She didn’t elaborate. Everyone sat stunned. She looked up at them, pleading, as if they could save her. “What if my power is a test? A temptation placed inside me by the Devil that I must resist?!” 

Kitty’s tears were flowing freely now. “Rahne, it’s not a test! It’s just a genetic difference. It has nothing to do with God or the Devil or whatever. It’s that stupid TV show that made you feel like —” 

“No! It is the form of the Beast, and it is inside me! You don’t know! You can’t understand me! From now on, I swear before God, I will never use my powers again. St. Bridget, help me in my battle against this evil.” 

Bobby didn’t know what to say. He looked around at the group. Some were in shock; some turned away, embarrassed. Neal was furious, looking like he was only just holding back the words. On the floor at his feet, John… _fucking John who he was trying to save_ was leaning back on his hands, eyes wide, barely suppressing a grin. He was enjoying the show. 

Bobby knew he had to take control of the meeting, to somehow find a way past this horrible part. But before he could speak, Jones broke out of his catatonic state and shot to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. 

“There’s a sound in the…” he paused and twisted his head to look up at the overhead lights. He giggled, and a trickle of drool made its way down his chin as he brought his gaze back down. “What did the fridge say to the alarm system?” he quizzed the group. The eyes behind his glasses seemed unfocussed, crazy. The students looked at each other in total confusion and then back at the boy who smiled manically and opened his mouth to deliver the punch-line: “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” The sound was purely electronic, like a fax machine _in extremis_. 

The lights flickered and the classroom’s audio-visual system switched on, projecting horrific images from World War I on the screen at the front of the room. A scratchy military march played over the speakers in a broken digital stutter, rising in pitch and volume until the system shorted out in a torrent of sparks. Simultaneously, Jones’s legs gave out and he crashed to the floor, taking down a pair of chairs with him. 

Bobby was at his side in a flash, clearing the fallen chairs off the boy’s body. Jones was convulsing, and Bobby looked up desperately. Dani came forward, getting her hands under his head, cradling it. 

“Don’t panic, everyone. He’s having a seizure. It should end in a minute. Bobby, send to Jean, okay?” 

Bobby stood quickly, working to calm his brain enough to make the telepathic call. As he turned away from Dani and Jones, he let out a yelp. The projector was on fire, five tongues of flame climbing higher. 

“Got it,” said John, who put a reassuring hand on Bobby’s shoulder while he raised his other hand towards the fire. The streaming flames twisted together into one bright blaze, and then were snuffed out of existence. 

“Thanks,” Bobby managed and wandered a few feet towards the door. He closed his eyes and concentrated. _*Jean? It’s Jones, he’s collapsed. He’s having, like, a fit. Dani is with him.*_

The answer came back with the startling speed of telepathy. _*Thank you, Bobby. I’ll be there in a minute. Dani is trained in first aid; please have everyone follow her instructions.*_

Bobby turned back to survey the room. Jones was on the floor shaking, surrounded by Dani and a small group. Sam was looking over in some kind of lovelorn misery at Terry who, oblivious to Sam, was staring at the twitching boy. Kitty was holding Rahne, both weeping. Neal was shaking his head, apparently disgusted by the whole scene. Smoke hung in the air, and Bobby’s nostrils burned with the stench of fried plastic. He felt a presence at his side. It was John. 

“What do you think?” Bobby asked him and laughed coldly. “That meeting went well, huh?” 

 

“Stick a turnip up your twat, you lowlife squid,” John told Doug. 

The 14-year-old nodded in pleasure. “Okay! What language do you want to hear it in?” 

“Japanese.” 

“That’s too easy! How about Tagalog?” 

Bobby was sitting on one of the chairs outside Xavier’s office, waiting with trepidation for his meeting — his sentencing hearing — to begin. Sam, Doug and John were with him, maybe trying to help him keep his mind off what was to come. 

He was so preoccupied with worry about John, Rahne, and Jones that he barely had energy to wonder what his punishment would be. Peter had carried Jones down to the med lab while Dani had acted as Jean’s assistant, leaving Bobby feeling completely left out. When Lance had collapsed a month earlier, he had been granted access to the high-tech underground world, and he had kind of assumed that the permission was permanent. Not so. His sense of privilege at the school was eroding rapidly. 

“What time is it, Doug?” he asked. 

“16:24:18,” he replied and gave Bobby a worried, sympathetic look. 

“Thanks. Maybe you guys should go now. I’ll see you after, okay?” 

“There’s no way they’d expel you, Bobby,” Sam insisted as he and Doug retreated. 

John didn’t go. He stood staring down at Bobby. 

“What?” Bobby demanded. 

“I hate this creepy, old-world boarding school vibe! What are they gonna do in there? Cane you?” 

Bobby’s stomach lurched. “No! Shut up!” 

“If they throw you out, what’s going to happen to me?” 

The queasiness turned to annoyance. “Thanks for you concern, John. I’m touched. Believe it or not, I’m thinking more about how to save your ass than mine right now.” 

“Really?” John seemed to consider this. “Why? What’s going to happen to me?” 

“I don’t know; maybe they want to find you a foster home or some social services place —” 

John blanched and shook his head. “No way! I’ll disappear. If they think they can ship me off into —” 

“Shut up a minute, will you?” Bobby snapped. “I want to get you into the school, and I think I know how.” 

John was silent. He crossed his arms on his chest and stared. “Why do you even care what happens to me?” 

Bobby stared back. He had no words. “Just ‘cause, okay? Because you belong here. Listen, go up to our room and get your portfolio.” 

John looked suspicious. “Why? And why did you call it ‘our room’?” 

“Because it is.” He let the statement hang in the air a minute before he dropped his head into his hands. “Stop asking ‘why’ and just do it! Get your portfolio — everything you’ve written. Bring it down and wait out here for me.” 

John’s mouth was a tight line. Bobby knew he wanted to throw out another belligerent question, but instead — amazingly — he obeyed, turning on his heel and running down the corridor towards the stairs. Bobby’s mouth tasted of metal and acid. This was all too much, everything was too fucking much. He almost bit his tongue in surprise when the office door opened. Kitty emerged, looking furious, shaken. 

“Kit…?” he ventured nervously. She glared at him, and then turned and walked away down the corridor, the same way John had gone. Bobby felt like his whole life was tilting towards a sinkhole somewhere down that corridor. 

Scott stuck his head out. “We’ll call you in a minute, Bobby.” He closed the door again, and Bobby wished he were back home in Boston, that he wasn’t a mutant, that he’d never met Xavier or Scott or Magneto or St. John Allerdyce. 

No. He didn’t wish he’d never met John. 

 

*** 

 

“Do you ever feel like a day has gone on for a week?” Xavier asked Scott and rubbed his temples with two hands. He felt that no matter what decision he made today, he was bound to disappoint everyone. Scott in particular had the ability to broadcast silent disapproval in a way even a non-telepath couldn’t miss. 

Not that the Assistant Headmaster was afraid to express his feelings verbally: “If my opinion means anything anymore, I think you let her off too lightly.” 

“Don’t be peevish, Scott. You know I value your opinion highly. What were we supposed to do? The girl’s crime was caring what happened to a fellow mutant.” 

“It’s bad enough that she put herself at risk, but when I think that Bobby could have been arrested or even killed… That boy is special; he’s my star, Charles. But he needs a firm hand! It’s in his nature to be a follower. He’s not tough enough for this world.” 

“Don’t underestimate your students, Scott. They always surprise you in the end.” 

“Please don’t lecture me. I worry about what kind of message we’ll send the students if we let Bobby and Kitty off the hook.” 

“Which we are not doing, may I remind you.” Xavier sighed. “Scott, I am sick of hypocrisy; mine especially. It’s true that Kitty and Robert behaved precipitously; but in essence, we did the same as they last evening. We are supposedly the teachers, the responsible ones, but we committed exactly the same crimes as the children. Their intentions were every bit as honorable as ours, and their methods every bit as questionable.” 

Scott threw himself into a chair and banged the padded arm with the palm of his hand. “So let’s throw out everything we’ve agreed to! Let them join us on missions and put their lives on the line for mutant kind! How old were we when you sent us out the first time?” 

Xavier looked away, stung by the mistakes of the past. “No, you’re right. This school represents a step forward in our thinking. We must protect the children, and to do that, we must have rules. It is our responsibility to save them from their own enthusiasm.” He fell silent and waited until he felt the dark cloud of Scott’s anger ease. “I am sorry if I undermine your authority on occasion. Perhaps I err on the side of sentiment.” 

Scott snorted, and a smile touched his lips. He stood again, arching backwards to crack his spine. He yawned loudly. “No word from Mr. and Mrs. Jones?” 

“I left a message at their home. I’m sure they’ll call as soon as they get it. Jean is worried. She has no idea what brought on Hayward’s attack nor when he will regain consciousness. Perhaps we should call Moira for her opinion.” 

“And she can tell us all the ways we screwed up.” Scott replied ruefully, and Xavier smiled. “If you’re ready, I’ll go get Bobby. Try to at least look stern, would you, Charles?” 

Xavier did exactly that. Poker-faced, he sat in censorious silence as Scott lectured and harangued. However, he sensed that a change had come over Bobby. Even through his own fatigue and guilt the night before, he had felt the depth of the boy’s misery. That was gone. Something new was driving the lad, giving him the strength to withstand his mentor’s disappointment. 

When Scott pronounced his sentence — grounded and barred from all school outings until Christmas with additional work details imposed — the boy was jolted, but responded only with a nod. 

“What about the protest in the City?” he asked, though without much grief or expectation. “Isn’t it important for all of us to be there?” 

“They’ll have to survive without you, Bobby. You’ll be working up on the roof with Forge on the new communications array.” 

Scott laid on a final speech about responsibility, about how the best of intentions can still lead to disaster when you do not think of the team. However, Xavier could feel Bobby’s mind shifting, preparing his next words, only listening to Scott with half an ear. 

Scott, finished with his lecture, told Bobby he could go. Instead of leaving, Bobby turned to Xavier for the first time. “Professor, may I say something. Not about me; about St. John Allerdyce.” 

“What is it, Robert?” 

“I think it would be a big mistake not to keep him as a student at the school.” 

It was Scott who responded. “I’m sure you’re worried about him, Bobby, but we’re in the best position to make choices about enrollment.” 

Bobby blinked at Scott, paused and then looked back at Xavier, clearly deciding to plead his case to one judge only. “He’s a writer, sir. He’s really good I think. Wouldn’t that be a good thing for us?” 

The Professor smiled kindly. “Robert, I’m sure he has much to offer, but we have many criteria for choosing —” 

Bobby jumped to his feet. “Just… Could you hold on one second? Please?!” He turned and ran from the room. Xavier could hear him squabbling with St. John outside the door. 

“No!” John was shouting. “You didn’t tell me what you wanted with it.” 

“John, don’t be an asshole,” Bobby hissed _sotto voce_. “Just give it to me!” 

“Let me at least go through it and… OW!” 

Bobby slipped back into the office a little breathless, clutching John’s leather portfolio to his chest. He crossed to the desk, dropping a few scraps from the bursting interior as he went. “Please, sir, just look at it!” he put it in front of the Headmaster as carefully as you would lay a raw steak in front of a growling lion, gazing worriedly into his eyes, and then retreating to a safe distance. 

Scott said, “This is not a good day for theatrics, Bobby —” 

Xavier put up a silencing hand. “Scott, go see if Hank is available for a 5:30 conference call. I’ll take a few minutes to glance at Mr. Allerdyce’s work.” 

“Yes, sir.” Scott replied and shot Bobby an annoyed look as he left the room. 

Xavier opened the portfolio. Most of what he saw was poetry, some written in a careful hand in colored inks, some computer printouts. He read a few stanzas of one poem and then a few from the next. He dug deeper into the stack, finding both notes and finished pieces, some dated, some not. There was a surprising amount of work in the pile, and judging by the lack of red-pen comments, none completed as school assignments. 

Soon, he had two or three poems chosen by instinct laid before him. He closed off his psychic senses to block out Bobby’s anxiety, which filled the air like a thick perfume. He read the three poems carefully. When he was done, he turned to stare out the window for a long minute. Night was falling rapidly as it did at this time of year. He could see his reflection overlaid on the chiaroscuro landscape. A couplet from one of the poems echoed in his brain: _Time was I didn’t know what time was / Now it hangs on my leg like a desperate junkie_. 

“Bobby, please ask Mr. Allerdyce to join me for a few minutes.” 

Bobby’s face exploded in a hopeful grin. “It’s good isn’t it, Professor? I don’t even understand most of it!” The latter clearly meant as an endorsement. 

Soon, Bobby was gone and St. John Allerdyce sat in front of him. The skinny boy had sunk into the wingback chair with a challenging look that seemed to say, You think I’m impressed? Guess again. Xavier looked back, calm, not in a hurry to speak. He felt the boy’s fear and the contempt that masked it. He mused that the artist grows a wall to protect his fragile vision in much the same way a street youth like St. John builds a wall to protect his soul from the indignities he faces every day. 

“How long have you been writing, Sinjin?” Xavier asked with a friendly smile. 

“Since I was 11. What did you call me?” 

“‘Sinjin’. That’s how I’ve always heard your name pronounced before. What do you say?” 

“‘Saint John.’ But don’t call me that around here. It sounds… kind of dorky. Just call me John.” 

“All right, John. Though it is All Saints Day today — a good day to celebrate your birthright.” 

“There’s too damn many saints as it is. They don’t need me in the club.” 

Charles smiled at this which seemed to satisfy the boy, whose body relaxed a little. “Has your writing always taken the form of poetry?” 

“No. I used to write these lame science fiction stories about crashing on planets and stuff. They were all in the first person, and the character had to survive all alone in these lifeless landscapes. Yeah, I know; the metaphor is pretty obvious. What do you want? I was 12.” 

“So you switched to poetry when your understanding of metaphor improved.” 

“I want to write novels, too, some day. Maybe. I’m not sure.” 

“I detect different influences in your work. Do you read a lot of poetry?” 

“Yeah. Right now I’m really into Hart Crane.” 

“Those are challenging poems.” 

“I know, but I like how he makes New York seem so mythical. The Brooklyn Bridge and stuff.” 

“Walt Whitman also celebrated the city in his work.” 

“Yeah, but he’s so utopian, you know? Crane’s poems… there’s this feeling in them, like it’s all going to end.” 

“And indeed, it did for him. Far too young.” 

“I like Jim Carroll a lot, too. Not so much his prosier stuff, though.” 

“I met Jim quite often in the Seventies. Alan Ginsberg introduced us.” 

“You knew Ginsberg?! Holy shit! Oh, sorry. I got a mouth on me.” 

“Apology accepted. Yes, for a time I was part of that literary circle. Do you see the book with the red spine up on the third shelf? Over to the left. Please take it down, if you would.” 

“‘His Nature in the City.’ That title is _so_ Whitman. But it doesn’t really work, does it? Oh, shit. _You_ wrote this. I-I’m sorry. It’s great.” 

“No, you’re quite right; the title isn’t good. I had to get the book to press quickly, and I made a hasty decision. It was my first volume of poetry and, I’m afraid, my last.” 

“You ran dry or something?” 

“No; I could have continued; though I’m not sure I had as much talent as I thought at the time. In any case, it became clear that my future lay elsewhere. I was finishing my psychology degree and grappling with how I would help the very secret underground that was the mutant community at the time.” 

The room had grown dim, their faces lit only by the single bulb of the desk light between them. Charles felt a sad tug from these memories of a life that might have been. 

The boy was turning the thin volume over in his hand, flipping quickly through the pages. Xavier knew that he was not reading the words, but rather imagining a book of his own. 

“John, I need to ask you a serious question.” 

John looked up from the book. He pushed his long, soft hair away from his face and eyed Xavier warily. _So much caution. So much hurt in one so young. But if he has the bravery… If I can help him tap into that vein…_

“If we were to make a place for you at the School for Gifted Youngsters, would you be willing to apply yourself? Would you be ready to follow our rules and be guided by our experience?” 

Xavier could hear the mental broadcast clearly: _*I don’t follow anybody’s fucking rules, old man!*_

Out loud, the boy said with a convincing show of sincerity, “Yes, sir. If you let me stay, I’ll work really hard. I won’t be any trouble.” 

Xavier nodded as if satisfied. “Good. St. John, you have an exceptional talent for writing. However, talent without discipline is as useless as a ship with no wind in its sails. If you agree, I would like to work with you one-on-one. Properly nurtured, you could be a fine writer. How would you like that?” 

The voices that came into his head were contradictory. _*I don’t need anybody’s help*_ wrestled with _*You think I’m special, you see it! Tell me again I’m special.*_

“Okay. Let’s do it,” John replied and stuck out a serious hand that Charles shook seriously. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby returned to their room at 9:30 and fell heavily into his bed without even looking at John. He pulled a pillow over his face to block out any fresh assaults the universe might have for him. 

“Is it over?” he asked John in a pillow-muffled voice. “Is this day really over?” 

“Where the hell have you been?” his new roommate asked, sounding pissed off. 

Bobby pushed the pillow up so it just covered his eyes. “Everyone was so wrapped up in Jones’s problems that no one told the teachers about Rahne.” 

“Oops. So you tracked down X? Or your good buddy Scott?” 

“No, I had enough of them today. I went to Jean.” 

“She’s kind of a cold one,” John remarked. 

“No, not once you get to know her. Although I don’t think she understands what Rahne’s feeling. Jean’s pretty hardcore about the science stuff.” 

“Do you think wolf-girl means it? She’ll never use her powers again?” 

“I have no clue. Shit, when she said it, I totally froze. I was supposed to be facilitating the meeting and I fell apart.” 

“Yeah, you should have stopped Jones from having a fucking seizure, too. What’s wrong with you, Bobby?” he said with a snort. 

“Okay, you’re right; but it kind of sucks that a kid had to go into a coma to save my ass. I’m serious though; what could I have said to her? That stuff about the Devil sounds completely crazy. I mean, my family does the whole church on Sunday thing, but no one takes it too seriously.” 

“The Drakes are nice, middle-of-the-road Protestants, right? Sing a few hymns and put enough in the collection plate to get on God’s good side in case he’s actually up there.” 

Bobby laughed. He was finding a great deal of comfort in John’s voice. His presence in the room seemed like the most natural thing in the world. “Yeah, that about describes it, I guess. What are you?” 

“Me? I fuck goats and sacrifice them to Beelzebub. But my mom is all batshit Catholic like Rahne. Holy water and Hail Marys. I guess praying to the BVM gave her comfort while my step-dad was beating me up in the next room.” 

Bobby pulled the pillow off his face and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t know how to respond. For the most part, talking to John was the easiest thing in the world; right from the minute they met, there had been this amazing rapport. But then he’d say things that would slap Bobby in the face, make him feel guilty and useless. Bobby sat up and looked over at John for the first time since he’d come into the room. 

“Holy shit!” Bobby shouted. “What did you do to your hair?!” 

John’s head was a patchy mess. In some places short tufts of brown were left, in others, he was almost down to the scalp. 

John’s was abruptly sulky and embarrassed. “I cut it, okay? No big deal.” 

“With what? A machete?!” 

“There were scissors on your desk. Don’t worry, I cleaned them.” 

Bobby stood up and came to sit beside John on his bed examining the damage. “Oh my God, you even cut yourself! Why, John? Why did you do it?” 

“It was that stupid Terry, okay? She was just _mooning_ at me all evening, and then I heard her fucking tell Dani that I was ‘pretty’!” 

“Oh, John —” Bobby raised a careful hand to touch the dried line of blood, and John flinched away. 

“Well, I’m not pretty now. I’m sick of being pretty. I’m sick of people wanting me for bullshit reasons. I’m going to be a writer, and they can all go to hell.” 

Bobby dropped the hand back into his lap and turned away. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, suddenly miserable. 

“Sorry?!” John said, surprised. “What have you got to be sorry about?” 

Bobby swallowed and began in a shaky voice. “About what happened last night…” 

“What? What happened?” John asked, anger edging into his voice. 

Bobby turned towards him; devastated, desperate. “I mean when we got back here and we… Don’t you remember?” He was confused. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe John didn’t even know! _Shit!_

“Oh, you mean when we got off?” 

Bobby cringed. “Yes. Look, I’m sorry… You were, like, wasted and I was supposed to be helping, but instead, I… took advantage… and it wasn’t right!” 

John stared at him for two fraught seconds and then fell back on the bed laughing. 

“What?!” Bobby demanded nervously. 

“Are you always such a freak case, Drake?” He propped himself up on his elbows. “Relax, we were both out of it. We got horny. It happens.” 

“But you were… I mean, what those guys did to you. They, uh, exploited you and paid you for —” 

John sat up and grabbed him by both arms. “Enough. Don’t fucking treat me like a victim, okay? You know why I was at the goddamn house? I chose to be there, so fucking shut it.” 

Bobby wasn’t consoled. “I-I know it’s wrong to want you like this… I’m just so happy you’re here, and I thought about you all these months and then… and when…” he was kind of hiccupping the words out, overwhelmed to be speaking them at all. “When I thought they weren’t going to let you stay, I just… just didn’t know what I would do —” 

“Enough!” John snapped, but then his eyes softened. He let go of one arm and ran a hand through Bobby’s hair. “Hey, you did it though. You got them to keep me. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” 

Bobby looked up, and John’s face was just a warm blur through the tears that filled his eyes. “Are you glad?” Bobby asked him. “Do you want to be here?” 

“Sort of ‘no’ and sort of ‘yeah.’ I don’t know about this school thing, and your buddy Summers is a rule-loving dick. But I think I can trust Xavier. And he thinks I’m talented. And I like Sam and that dumb-ass Doug. Dani is cool and tough, and maybe even Terry’ll be normal now that I look like I escaped from the psych ward.” 

“Maybe.” Bobby smiled even as one of the tears escaped and rolled down his cheek. 

“And I like you, Drake. I want to be here in this stupid room where I feel safe. And I’m not mad about last night. I wanted it.” He paused, and any trace of sarcasm left his voice. “I wanted you ever since I met you.” 

Bobby’s chin trembled. He put a hand on John’s chest. “Me too,” he breathed. “I thought about you.” 

“I know.” 

“No, I mean, I thought about you at night when I…” 

“Yeah, I know. So did I.” John’s smile returned and quickly ramped up to its dirtiest. “I jerked off over you all the time. I shot so many loads with you in my head; thinking of you hard, entering me, sucking me.” John milked the words for their full effect, pleased to be corrupting the good boy. 

Bobby wasn’t smiling. His mouth was hanging open and his heart was racing. “I thought about your skin and your lips.” 

“Did you think about my ass?” 

“Yeah… and your eyes and your hands and… your dick.” Bobby blushed to say the word out loud. 

John breathed right into his ear, “Are you hard?” 

Bobby heard himself respond, “Feel it.” And John did, gripping the length of Bobby through his jeans. 

Bobby’s groan was pure and animal. He didn’t hesitate at all as he reached up and took John’s head in his hands and pulled them together. But as their lips were about to connect, John pulled away. 

Bobby opened his eyes and was shocked to see that it was John who had now turned shy. “What’s the matter?” 

“I don’t… I never kiss.” 

Bobby didn’t let him go, though. He stroked the scourged scalp and kissed him softly on his forehead, on his temples until the boy let out a ragged moan. “Kiss me, John. Please,” he whispered, gentle and insistent. 

“I… don’t know how, okay?” 

“Like this, John, like this…” 

And Bobby, to his own amazement, taught the hustler how to be a lover. 


	18. Let the Statue of Liberty See What Lies Inland

Bobby couldn’t get his curls to sit right. He had gelled them and pushed them around relentlessly on his head, but it was going to be one of those days when his hair refused to cooperate. He gave up, and instead adjusted his shirt collar so it stuck out evenly from the crew-neck of his baby-blue sweater. In the reflection of the small wall mirror, he saw John’s amused eyes, staring at him with infuriating skepticism. 

“Fuck, Drake,” his roommate offered with a smirk. “You act like you’re going on a date instead of to a physics class.” 

John, for his part, was sprawled on his bed wearing his one pair of jeans and one of Bobby’s t-shirts, the same clothes he had taken off last night, or rather that Bobby had taken off him. His mind filled with vivid memories of John’s lips on his, their bodies straining together. Today, even John’s brutally self-inflicted haircut looked hot. 

Still, Bobby wasn’t going to be anyone’s clown just because he cared about his appearance. He shot John a look in the mirror and decided to assert himself. “What? Does it, like, hurt your big, cool rebel sense if I like to look good?” 

“Knock yourself out,” John retorted and turned away in a sudden sulk. Bobby’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t meant to hurt him. He was shocked he could! He watched John flipping through the physics textbook he had received from Professor Xavier after dinner the night before. “Shit, I used to know some of this stuff, but now it’s like trying to read runes.” 

Bobby went and sat by John and said with enthusiasm, “Do you know runes? Those are always in the fantasy novels I read!” 

John rolled his eyes. “Metaphor, Bobby, metaphor!” 

Bobby blinked. He had begun to realize that being with John required a lot of patience. He tried again. “I think you’re just nervous about your first day of school; that’s why you’re acting like such a hard-ass. Trust me, you’ll be fine. And Terry said she’ll be glad to tutor you in physics.” 

“Hard ass?” John threw the book down on the bed. “I’ll show you hard ass!” He jumped on Bobby and knocked him onto his back, pinning his arms. Bobby gasped, and a snake of frozen breath escaped from his lips, drifting across John’s face. 

“I could totally throw you across the room, Allerdyce,” Bobby warned, his voice shaking a little. “I’ve had training.” 

“Ooh, listen to you, Jet Li. Why don’t you just shut up and show me how to kiss again?” 

Like the taste of fire on Bobby’s lips, John’s bravado faded when they left the safety of their dorm room ten minutes later. He trailed Bobby through the school day like a puppy, hiding his head in Physics and scratching it in Math. Things were a bit better in Geography and, after lunch in Biology. However, it was in English, the last class of the day, that John finally had his chance to shine. 

Professor Xavier seemed unimpressed with the answers coming back to him from the class, and pointedly asked John to contribute to the discussion. John took a deep breath and then emerged from his shell to demonstrate in no uncertain terms just how well he understood what Toni Morrison was up to in _Beloved._ He held the floor for several minutes, and by the time he finished, Xavier was beaming. 

Bobby (for whom spotting literary devices was like looking for a polar bear in a snowstorm) couldn’t stop grinning proudly as John’s confidence swelled. Afterwards, Peter, whose love of literature rivaled John’s, walked with him and discussed the book as Bobby followed at a discreet distance, relieved that his roommate was making friends at the mansion. While it was true that Peter made everyone look small in comparison, John was walking tall as they entered the foyer. 

“Hey, New Kid,” came a challenging voice from the first floor landing. John frowned and looked up, instantly ready for a fight. What he saw was Sam Guthrie grinning at him with Terry at his side. Sam’s Kentucky twang grew especially thick when he was being playful. “Why don’t you get your _be_ -hind up to my room. I gots me some proper barbering clippers and I aim to make that sorry mess on your head look like something halfway respectable!” 

John looked over at Bobby with a serious face. He was acting cool, but Bobby knew he was nervous about this plan, still not sure how far his trust should extend. 

Bobby crossed his arms as if considering and then said with a wink, “I think that’s an offer you’d be wise to accept.” 

“Fine,” John answered as if he couldn’t care less. “Make me beautiful.” 

“He’s not a miracle worker, Sparky,” Terry put in with a raised eyebrow as John climbed the stairs to join them. 

Bobby called after him, “Uh, I’ll be in our room taking a nap. Come and wake me before dinner, John.” He was already hatching a plan that made his palms sweat. 

Terry’s quip aside, John was beautiful when he opened their door 45 minutes later, dramatically lit from behind by the hall lights. Without the cascade of soft hair, he no longer possessed the fragile beauty of an angel. Instead, his beauty was stark and sculptural. There remained only a faint brown shadow of buzzed hair, but that emphasized his probing, hungry eyes and his full lips. 

John closed the door behind him, but remained where he was, peering into the darkened room. “Bobby?” he asked, unsure if he was alone or not. 

With a shaking hand, Bobby reached over and snapped on the light on his nightstand. “Hi.” 

John turned his way, his mouth moving with half-formed questions. They never had a chance to emerge before Bobby threw off his blanket and presented himself, naked and aroused to the gaping boy. 

John could only stare for a few seconds before whispering, “Shit…” 

Bobby knew he liked what he saw, knew that he liked the bravery of the gesture. For Bobby, it was terrifying and exhilarating to be so brazen. Each time he dared to be openly sexual, he felt he was gambling with every chip he had. There seemed to be so much to lose! But so far, the wheel was turning up winners, and he couldn’t step away from the table. 

“Come here, St. John,” he breathed. 

John stayed where he was, his eyes wide and his breathing growing faster. Bobby could see the thickening of his penis behind the cover of his jeans and he suddenly found himself appreciating John’s no-underwear policy. “Come here,” Bobby repeated. 

“No,” John replied, taking control of the game. “I want to watch you. Stroke it, Drake.” 

Bobby felt his stomach turn over. John’s hungry eyes suddenly seemed as powerful and dangerous as Scott’s. “You mean, you want to watch me —?” 

“Jack off, yeah. Do it.” John pawed at himself through his pants. Bobby began shyly, with light, fast strokes, feeling more naked than he ever had before. “Fuck, that is so hot. Anyone ever tell you have big balls?” 

Bobby was growing more bold, groaning as he pleasured himself, spreading a river of pre-cum down the length of his shaft. “Yeah, they did…” 

John, breathless with lust, guffawed nonetheless. “Oh, really? You have some stories to tell me, virgin boy.” He was now massaging his erection in earnest as he watched Bobby perform. 

“Take it out,” Bobby moaned. “I wanna see it.” 

“Heh,” John teased with grin. “Make me, virgin boy.” 

Bobby was on his feet in a second, crossing the room and pushing John against the door. He ran his hand over the scratchy surface of the shaved head as his mouth found John’s. They kissed with sloppy passion. Bobby pushed up John’s t-shirt and pressed his leaking hard-on against the smooth stomach while he felt John up with a probing hand. He needed it. He had to have that dick, and none of the internal voices that advised prudence and caution could quell that desire. He dropped to his knees and pulled at button and zipper until he had what he wanted in his hands, until he could feel the intense heat of John’s penis pressed against his face and he was smelling it, tasting it, swallowing it whole. 

The feeling returned, like the first time — some perfect connection of fire and ice — as waves of cold in his mouth and hands met waves of heat in a collision of opposites. John let out a hoarse shout and pushed himself deep into Bobby’s throat, thrusting maybe five times before he came powerfully. At the same time, Bobby exploded under the power of his own hand, sending globs of cum shooting against the leg of John’s jeans and onto the floor between them. And just for a second, he couldn’t tell them apart. It was like he was John, and he could feel his dick in his own mouth and see himself there on his knees through those dangerous, beautiful eyes before they squinted tight in ecstasy, dropping a curtain on the vision. 

Bobby fell back on the floor, with his mouth hanging open, aftershock orgasms shaking his frame every few seconds. He could feel little bursts and crackles in his throat as John’s burning fluids met an icy death. Steam escaped from his mouth. 

“Fucking shit, Drake,” John panted and slid down the door to join Bobby on the floor. “You really know how to make a guy feel welcome.” 

 

Half an hour later, they were running through the halls towards dinner, laughing like idiots and bouncing off the walls. They burst into the dining room and almost fell over Professor Xavier in his chair. 

“Oops,” Bobby said, catching himself, but not losing his grin. “Sorry, Professor. We, uh, didn’t want to be late.” 

“It’s my fault,” John added with a straight face. “I was making Bobby give me a hand… with my homework.” Bobby turned away, coughing. 

Xavier smiled and nodded. “That’s fine, boys. I’m glad your first day of classes hasn’t put you in a bad mood, John. Oh, Robert?” 

Bobby turned to him, still blushing from John’s comment. “Yes, sir?” 

“A friend of yours is here and wishes to speak to you.” He gestured towards the teacher’s table where Bobby saw a familiar face. She was chatting with Ororo, showing her something in a notebook. 

“Oh my God, it’s Andi! C’mon, John.” He ran up to young woman who smiled with pleasure to see him. 

“Bobby, wow, it’s been forever!” enthused Andi Murakami. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’m helping the Professor and Ms. Monroe get ready for the demonstration tomorrow. We’ve had wonderful response from some civic leaders and even some celebrities!” 

Ororo nodded. “Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins just confirmed they’ll be speaking.” 

“Holy cow,” Bobby said, impressed. 

Ororo got up from the table. “I’m going to get my dinner. Will you join me, Andi?” 

“Thanks, Ororo; I just want to talk to Bobby a minute first.” Ororo moved off and Andi looked up at Bobby warmly. “Sit down. You and I have to catch up. It was the Professor who got Sarandon and Robbins. I’m amazed how many connections that man has. 

John appeared behind Bobby’s chair. “I heard a rumor their son is a mutant.” 

“Hey, Andi, do you remember John?” Bobby asked and couldn’t keep himself from beaming up at his friend. “He came to the first meeting in May.” 

“I do. Hello, John. I’m surprised to find you here.” 

John raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? I don’t fit your image of mutant prep-school boy, huh?” he responded acidly. 

Andi and Bobby suddenly entered a contest of who could look more embarrassed. She quickly remarked, “No, no, I-I just meant that when I met you, you seemed to be… in transition.” 

Bobby’s smile was a bit forced. “Yeah, but now he’s here and he’s doing great.” 

John rolled his eyes. “I’m going to sit with Peter and Dani, Drake. See you later.” He turned and walked away without another word to Andi. 

“Sorry about that,” Bobby murmured. 

“No, I’m sorry. I should have realized how that sounded.” They were silent for moment before Andi opened her laptop. “There’s something I wanted to show you. Here, read this.” 

She turned the laptop around to an open email message. 

__Forwarded message from: info@midtownyouth.org  
To: andimura@gmail.com   
From: yinyang91@pionline.com   
Subject: Looking for Derek 

_To whom it may concern_

_PLEASE GIVE THIS MESSAGE TO ANDI FROM THE FORMER MUTANT YOUTH GROUP. IT IS PRIVATE SO DON’T READ IT. THX_

_Hi Andi_

_This is Lynn and Nyll and we need help. Derek is missing and we’re worried. He was scared to stay in his apartment and he moved somewhere but didn’t tell us._

_Maybe you don’t know, but we were his girlfriend for a while. He already broke up with Stacey in August. Did you know that? It wasn’t because of us, though. Honestly. We were just being supportive and then things went a bit too far. You know how it is. We were kind of stupid, actually. Our parents were being super nasty to Nyll (this is Lynn writing this part) and they couldn’t understand that she’s their daughter too. She was always inside me before our power manifested. They won’t even look at her which makes me so mad because she’s beautiful._

_So anyway, we ran away and lived with Derek and then the police almost arrested him and it was totally our fault. So we went home but then he was getting these death threats from someone and he took off._

_He shows up on GenePool sometimes and he sounds really angry, like he’s going to do something stupid. But we don’t believe he would hurt anyone. He’s very gentle. You know that, don’t you? His red skin makes him look meaner than he is. So, if he calls you or something, let us know or if you can find him._

_Thanks a lot, Andi. We miss the youth group_

_Lynn and Nyll_

Bobby looked up to find Andi’s serious face watching him. “Have _you_ heard anything from Derek?” she asked. 

“No, not at all. I mean, we were never friends. I-I think he had a lot of good things to say, but he wasn’t ever the warm and friendly type, you know? Maybe Tonio’s heard from him.” 

“I don’t know; I phoned Tonio at the Center and asked him if they’d been in touch. He just said not to worry, that Derek would handle things his own way. Frankly, that made me even more anxious.” 

“Doug Ramsey — the blond kid over there — he spends a lot of time on GenePool. We’ll ask him to check after dinner, okay? Maybe Derek will be logged on.” 

Ororo returned with her tray and Bobby went to join John. Bobby was quiet during dinner, thinking about the summer and all the young mutants who had attended the meetings at the Youth Center before the nervous administration cancelled them indefinitely. The truth was, he didn’t like Derek and resented the boy’s refusal to see anything but the worst in people. Still, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to him… 

He watched John talking to the others at the table and felt a little jealous that he was making friends so easily. He had sort of liked John being dependent on him. 

Twenty minutes later, Ororo stood to announce that the next day the students would be joining most of the staff in New York at the protest over the broadcast of The Betrayers. What she actually said was, “…all but a few of you…” and students turned to look at Bobby. He ducked his head, blushing, and then tried to ignore the excited chatter as they left the dining room. His two-month detention suddenly really stung. 

When the students were dismissed, he and Andi grabbed Doug to ask for his help. Bobby looked over at John with an unspoken invitation, and was kind of surprised when he got up and joined them, pointedly ignoring Andi, but accompanying them to the recreation room nonetheless. 

Most of the students ended up in the rec room every evening, and it was always a noisy hive of activity. They played games on the big screen and did their homework on the couches or at the work tables; many logged in with laptops to the wireless network. Bobby thought it might we be his favorite time and place at the school. In this joyous, studious hubbub, he felt like he had stumbled across the family he was meant to have instead of the fractious Drakes. 

_Whizzer >Rumors about me being a mutant all ovr the skool_   
_4ontheFloor >I heard Turcot tortured them with electrodes_   
_Shadowcat >I don’t think there were electrodes involved._   
_**GenePool welcomes csilagszoro at 7:35 p.m._   
_Ramalamadingdong >Whizzer, anyone at school you can trust? A teacher? _

“Are you ‘Ramalamadingdong’?” John snorted. 

“Yeah. It’s from this old song me and my dad like. Quiet, let me concentrate.” Doug was perched on the edge of the couch, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his customized Linux laptop which sat on the coffee table. Bobby, John, and Andi were gathered around him, squeezed awkwardly together so they could see the screen. 

_Whizzer >I think my best friend knows but Im scared to ask him_   
_Shadowcat >And Turcott didn’t consider it torture. He thought he was_ _  
_helping. Totally fucked in the head, but that’s what he thought.__   
_Ramalamadingdong >If you don’t feel safe, don’t tell. But you could_   
_keep a diary. That sometimes feels good. Helps you work out your feelings_   
_csillagszoro >vannak itt Magyar mutansok?_   
_4ontheFloor >Id use electrodes on him if he was alive_   
__Shadowcat >So you think Turcott was totally wrong? He said he was__   
trying to help mutants who wanted to control their powers   
_Ramalamadingdong >Szia, Csillagsoro. Hól vagy? Budapesten?_   
_Bécsben van egy Mutansklub._

“Csillagszoro is from Hungary,” Doug explained. “He’s really cool. He can log on without a computer, just using his mind.” 

“That’s amazing,” Andi exclaimed. “You mean he could be walking down the road now?” 

“Yeah, or sitting on the can,” John suggested. 

Bobby considered. “Actually, you could be on the toilet with a laptop.” 

“Classy, Drake,” John replied. 

Doug ignored this exchange. “I wish I could get online like that. I think Jones is going to be able to,” he added enthusiastically and then grew serious as he remembered his roommate’s condition. “I mean, after he’s better. Listen, I can only help you for another five minutes. I have to go see him in the med-lab, okay?” 

Bobby put a hand on his shoulder. “Sure, buddy. No prob.” 

“Then maybe you should ask about Derek now,” Andi prompted. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

_Ramalamadingdong >Hey, anyone hrd from DerekTheRed? His_   
_friends r worried about him_   
_4ontheFloor >Yes turcot was totally wrong. Magneto says MUTANT_   
_DESTINY IS AN HISTORICAL INEVITABILITY, BUT WE MUST_   
_TAKE UP ARMS TO MAKE THE INEVITABLE THE ACTUAL._

“Ouch! Overripe-language alert,” John commented. “Magneto should hire me as his speech writer.” 

_Ramalamadingdong >Anyone?_   
_Whizzer >g2g_   
_**Whizzer has left GenePool at 7:42 p.m._   
_station2station >He was here ths afternoon. Said smthing like ‘We’ll_   
_make the world shake in its boots’_   
_Shadowcat >Okay, shall we analyze that? If it’s INEVITABLE then_   
_you don’t have to fight for it. Magneto makes it sound like it’s a_   
_foregone conclusion that mutants will destroy humans or enslave_   
_them. But all that destiny bullshit is rhetoric and politicking. We have_   
_free will. We can choose not to destroy each other._

“I like this ‘Shadowcat’?” Bobby told Doug. “She’s pretty smart.” 

“Shh!” Doug hissed, ducking lower behind his computer. He nodded sideways and Bobby looked across the room to where Kitty sat at a work table, typing on her blue laptop. 

Bobby pointed discreetly. “Shadowcat?” he whispered. 

“Yeah.” 

Bobby was surprised. From the way she had been moping around the mansion, he had assumed she was still too wrapped up in losing Lance to be thinking about the world; yet here she was involved in the dialogue, trying to make a difference. But if she wasn’t completely depressed, why was she still treating him like leper? 

Andi bit a fingernail in agitation. “‘Make the world shake in its boots’? That sounds bad.” 

Bobby tried to reassure her, though he thought she had a point. “That’s just how Derek talks. If he means to say ‘no thank you,’ he says ‘shove it up your you-know’.” 

“Your ‘you know’?” John exclaimed, his eyes wide with mock alarm. “Where’s that, Bobby? Do I have one?!” 

Doug’s exclamation pre-empted Bobby’s caustic retort. “Oh my God, he’s here!” 

_**GenePool welcomes DerekTheRed at 7:45 p.m._   
_GenXJenni >shadowcat, how do u make peace when they call you_   
_killers on TV?_   
_DerekTheRed >TOMORROW IS OUR DATE WITH DESTINY_   
_DerekTheRed >I’M THRU WITH PEOPLE DISSIN ME_   
_Station2Station >Derek ur awesome!_   
_Ramalamadingdong >Derek, Im with Andi here. can she talk 2 u?_   
_DerekTheRed >TIME TO TAKE BACK UR MUTANT PRIDE_   
_DerekTheRed >DON’T TAKE THE BACK SEAT ON TH RIDE _

“Is that supposed to be a poem?!” John laughed. “What the fuck?” 

“I don’t think he’s going to answer us, Andi,” Doug sighed. 

Bobby leaned forward. “Doug, quick, tell him to call me at the mansion. Say it’s important.” 

_4ontheFloor >Mutant pride!!!!!!!!! Fuck the flatliners!!_   
_DerekTheRed >IN NYC TOMORROW WE RIP THE LIARS_   
_DerekTheRed >WE WAVE OUR BANNERS PASS OUT OUR FLIERS_   
_Ramalamadingdong >Derek. Call Bobby. He’s worried_   
_DerekTheRed >WE SCREAM THE NEWS LIKE MUTANT TOWN CRIERS _

“‘And spin like socks in mutant dryers’,” John suggested and Doug giggled. 

Bobby pushed the boy away from the keyboard and typed: 

_Ramalamadingdong >This s Bobby, Derek. don’t do something_   
_illegal! We can help._   
_DerektheRed >WE SHOCK AND AWE LIKE ELECTRICAL WIRES_

“You’re Lame!” John shouted at the screen and tried to wrestle the laptop away from Bobby. “Give me that! I have to tell him how he’s lame and should be killed slowly.” 

“Everybody leave my computer alone!” Doug pushed them aside and slumped forward to cover the keyboard. 

Andi put her hand on the boy’s back and spoke with gentle urgency: “Doug, tell him he can protest with the group from the school tomorrow. We’ll be happy to have him fighting on our side.” 

Doug sat up warily and they all checked the progress of the chat. 

_temptation93 >Whos going tomorrow? Any1 driving frm Newark?_   
_theClaw >Everybuddy get Omega tatooz. Brotherhood!!_   
_DerekTheRed >Tomorrow is destiny! TOMORROW THE EXPLOSION_   
_BEGINS!!_   
_Shadowcat >*yawn* I’m so very impressed._   
_**Shadowcat has left GenePool at 7:48 p.m._

Bobby looked up to see Kitty close her laptop, stand and leave the room. Bobby thought she looked sad and terribly alone. 

_Ramalamadingdong >Derek, protest with us tomorrow. We’re making_   
_really gr8 signs._   
_**GenePool welcomes Bruge15 at 7:48 p.m._   
_4ontheFloor >Dereks gonna fuck them UP!_   
_Bruge15 >y’a quelqu’un de Belgique?_   
_**DerekTheRed has left GenePool at 7:49 p.m._   
_**Ramalamadingdong has left GenePool at 7:49 p.m._

“Sorry,” Doug murmured and closed his laptop. “I’ll let you know if he comes on later, okay?” He stood apologetically. 

Bobby gave him an encouraging smile. “Thanks, Doug. You were a big help. Go see Jones and let us know how he’s doing.” The boy gave a small grateful smile and ran off, laptop clutched to his chest. Bobby stretched, realizing his back was stiff with tension. “What’ll we do, Andi?” 

“I don’t know. ‘Electrical wires,’ ‘Explosions.’ Maybe we have to alert the authorities.” 

John gave her a disgusted sneer. “You’re going to rat out a mutant kid? We’re the ones who were assaulted. That’s why we’re protesting!” 

Andi looked guilty. “I know, but if the protest doesn’t remain peaceful it will just hurt the cause!” 

“Tell the Professor, Andi,” Bobby counseled. “He’ll know what to do.” 

John scrunched himself back into the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. “Frankly, I hope he burns the fucking network to the ground. As long as he doesn’t feel compelled to write a fucking _sonnet_ about it.” 

Bobby sprung to his feet, feeling he should _do_ something, though he didn’t quite know what. He looked around the room and saw that Kitty hadn’t left; she was standing in the doorway talking to Roberto. As she exited into the hall, a wave of courage made him follow. He caught sight of her as she was about to vanish around the corner. 

“Kitty!” 

She stopped and he could see her stiffen. Bobby knew she was as likely to bolt as turn and respond. He had no option but to address her back. “It’s a total drag that we don’t get to go tomorrow. I bet it’s going to be a really, you know, historic day.” 

She turned slowly and he was surprised that her expression was more anxious than angry. “Yeah, I know. You can watch it live online. Want me to send you the link?” 

“That would be great, thanks.” He smiled, but then she started to turn away before he had really said anything. “Kitty, wait.” She stopped. His voice revealed more pain than he realized he was feeling. “Why are you treating me like this? It’s not my fault that Lance… that things turned out the way they did.” 

“Bobby,” she began carefully, “Did something happen with you and Lance on his last night at the mansion?” He opened his mouth but no words came out. She was watching him carefully, assessing. “He told me he was upset about something, and I think you know what it is.” 

Bobby was lost somewhere between anger and guilt. _It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t make Lance do anything that night! How could I?_ “You’re not being fair, Kitty!” he accused. 

“God! You can’t even answer a simple question! Did something happen?!” 

“Kitty, I understand that you’re upset, but —” 

“NO, I don’t want to hear it! I don’t even know you!” 

She turned on her heel and vanished through the wall, leaving Bobby breathing the sour air of amorphous accusations. 

 

*** 

 

It was the next morning. Finally. The sun was at last making itself known behind the drapes, and John didn’t want Bobby in his bed. They had fallen asleep after an hour of increasingly groggy talk, which in turn had followed another round of explosive fooling around. John didn’t know what to make of this crazy connection with Bobby Drake. He’d had sex with a lot of guys, especially in the past year, but he had never felt this maddening loss of control. His orgasms had never been this obliterating. He couldn’t decide if it was the greatest thing ever discovered or something too unsettling to bear. 

What he did know was that he had been tossing and turning — a writhing coil of razor wire — since 5 a.m., and that having the gangly form of sleeping Bobby chasing him around the narrow mattress, trying to maintain a monkey-baby hold on him wherever he moved was more than he could stand. 

_So why don’t you just kick him out of bed, moron?_ he wondered. _You can’t afford to get so fucking sentimental!_

His mind was unfocussed; a whirling torrent of ideas, hopes, half-realized fears. His patchy sleep had been haunted by images of gray buildings pressing down on him. He had run and run through numberless alleys, escaping specters with masked faces until he had awoken exhausted. 

Maybe it was the contrast of his unrest and Bobby’s apparent perfect contentment that was so infuriating. He pulled away until he could look at the sleeping face. Peace. Angelic fucking peace. And god-fucking-dammit, he could feel his heart melt at the sight of the long lashes and button nose. _Weak! Weak!_ he berated himself. 

The glowing numbers on the clock told him there were still 15 minutes until their alarm went off. Bobby would probably want to get off again. John’s body immediately responded to the idea, but his mind wanted to be left alone. He disentangled himself from the sheets and from Bobby (who moaned irritably), and climbed out of bed. He had to search all over the room to find the clothes he had been wearing before bed. As he felt around under his bed for his second sock, he heard Bobby mumbling above him. 

“Don’t go to New York. Stay in bed with me all day.” 

John left for the bathroom without answering. 

There was a stone in his stomach even before they got downstairs for breakfast, and it was weighing him down, sinking him into a dark place from which he perceived the world through a truculent haze. His monosyllabic responses prompted Sam to rename him Grunting John. 

Bobby didn’t seem much cheerier, watching his friends brimming over with excitement about the trip to the City and the rally that he was about to miss. John reflected that if it had been him with the detention, he would have found enough solace in his anger to shield himself from misery. Bobby, in contrast, didn’t appear to know what the word “stoical” even meant. John made a mental note of how easy it would be to punish his friend; a factoid worth having. 

He watched girls comparing outfits and guys posing like roosters or cutting up like fools. It all pissed him off. The worst part was he didn’t know what he was so bent out of shape about. Even without Bobby going, he had enough people at the school he felt comfortable with. He could even score some coolness points because he was so familiar with Manhattan. His stomach suddenly lurched. Maybe the waffles weren’t agreeing with him. 

Ororo and Scott both made logistics and safety announcements, reminding the group to keep an eye on their designated “buddies” and to stay together in the crowd. They gave the group an emergency meeting place in case they became separated, and warned them not to use powers unless they were in immediate danger. 

John listened with anger-tinged boredom until Scott passed the ball to Xavier. “Please take all of Mr. Summers’s warnings seriously,” the Headmaster told the group. “You must watch out for each other at all times. That being said, I want you to enjoy yourselves today and to feel pride in what we are doing. We were attacked with drama and rhetoric and we are responding in kind. You will see many mutants today. For some of you, this will be a new experience. Use this opportunity to remember that we are many. Use this day to see what we are fighting for.” 

John had to admit the guy had smarts and style. 

Roberto was overdressed in a sober suit, as if they were heading for a funeral or he was being inaugurated or something. John smirked, but then Neal, standing with Roberto and wearing pretentious Euro-fashion, turned and caught his eye, giving him a look of sour reproof. John tried to glare back, but something was wrong: his heart started racing, he broke into a sweat, and hastily turned away like a coward. He pinched himself hard under the table, digging a long nail into the skin of his arm. The sharp pain cleared his head, and he was left wondering again what the fuck was wrong with him today. He forced himself to tune back in to Xavier’s calming voice. 

“There is one more request I would make of you. Our guest, Andi Murakami, is worried about a mutant named Derek who has gone missing. She fears he may attempt some sort of disruption at the proceedings today. Let us try to pre-empt any harm he may do, and try to protect Derek from harm himself. I am projecting his image into your minds. His features, you’ll note, are quite distinctive. If you see him, inform one of the teachers or Ms. Murakami immediately. Thank you, children. Please join us on the front driveway in 15 minutes.” 

John sat with a miserable Bobby on the front steps, offering silent support as the students emerged from the mansion wearing sweaters and fall jackets. The day was sunny but cold, yet the fire and ice boys were just in shirtsleeves, oblivious to the temperature. 

Fred Dukes noticed them and took a detour. “Hey, Bobby, John, did you hear? They’re going to let me stay at the school!” 

John scowled. _What’s so special about tubby?_ he wondered. Bobby pulled out one of his special smiles, and the change of mood startled John. “That’s great, Fred! If there’s anything I can do to help you settle in, let me know.” 

“Thanks, Bobby! If there’s time, I’m gonna pick up some posters to put up in my room. Doug told me there are some cool memorabilia shops near the protest. I’ve never seen New York before. This is gonna be awesome!” 

He turned and ran down to one of the two waiting black SUVs whose sides were branded in elegant, silver X’s. John watched Bobby’s face return to its former gloom. “You better go, John. I think everyone else is on board.” 

A horn honked and Scott called out his name. 

“You going to be okay, Drake?” 

“Yeah.” 

“It’s not like you’re missing much. Just a bunch of self-congratulatory speeches. These rallies are always preaching to the converted, you know?” 

“No, I don’t know. I’ve never been to one.” 

He gave Bobby the best sympathetic face he could, which probably wasn’t too impressive, and headed down the steps. 

Xavier and Ororo were the teachers in the first vehicle, and John watched them pull away as he approached the SUV driven by Scott, with Andi riding shotgun. He put a hand on the frame of the open panel door and put one foot inside. Then he froze. His heart was beating faster and he could feel his armpits dampening with sweat. _What the fuck?_ he asked his body, but his body gave no answer. 

With a challenging look on his face, he dared peer inside to see who he was acting like a moron in front of. Terry, Sam and Pete looked confused, but then he saw Neal, and his consternation turned to fear. Something in those eyes, something he’d seen before — a contempt, a sure knowledge that John was going down in flames while he himself came out the winner. John knew that look. It was the same he’d seen so often in Chisel’s eyes during his tenure in Keever’s gang. It was Chisel who always let him know that he was temporary, that his fate hung by a thread. John wanted to pull himself inside, to knock the damn Indian know-it-all on his ass, but he couldn’t move. He was in limbo. 

“John, are you all right?” It was Scott’s voice, and it took him a second to realize that his teacher had come up behind him. He felt the weight of the man’s hand on his shoulder. “Are you going to get in?” 

“Yeah, give me a second, I think I forgot something or something!” He cringed at his own words. 

“John, come here. Let’s talk a second.” He felt the hand gently pulling him back from the vehicle, and though he was burning with shame, he obeyed its urging. They walked a few feet away, and John scowled down at his shoes as Scott addressed him quietly. “You don’t have to go with us if you don’t want.” 

John snapped back. “I’m fine. I just need to…” But he didn’t know what he needed. He turned to look up at the faces pressed against the windows, staring at his lameness. “I don’t know what’s happening, this is bullshit.” 

“Maybe,” Scott suggested, “you’re not ready to go back to the City.” 

John was outraged. He was being psychoanalyzed by a fucking Scout leader! By a glorified soccer coach! The fact that he was right made it all the worse. 

“That’s… that’s bullshit,” John managed, annoyed again at his failure of wit. “I’ve been up and down every corner of that stupid city a million times in the last six months!” 

“Exactly. Where you were in danger, hungry, scared —” 

“I handled it.” 

“You did, I know. You survived, and that’s something to be proud of. But now you’re safe here at the Mansion and your mind doesn’t like the idea of going back.” 

“It’s just the fucking waffles poisoned me, okay? You’ve been reading too many of X’s psych texts.” 

Scott surprised him by smiling instead of getting pissed off. “Maybe you’re right. In any case, you’re free to stay here today if that’s what you want.” 

John didn’t answer. His weakness was humiliating. He had to march away from this agonizing conversation, get on the bus and put anyone who condescended to him firmly in their place. But now that Summers had said it out loud… Shit! The thought of being on those streets, exposed to anyone who might know him. Nikkatyne’s gang, former tricks, Chisel… 

“I think I just need to, uh, sleep this off a bit. Besides, I have a ton of reading for my classes.” 

“True. You have a lot of catching up to do.” 

Scott put a comforting hand back on his shoulder, and John shrugged it off. He couldn’t find the courage to look at the other students again, but he stood tall and tried to seem as bad-ass as he could under the circumstances. The only good part was the look on Bobby’s face when the vehicle that had hidden the whole sordid scene from his roommate pulled away and revealed him. 

John walked past Bobby without stopping, tossing over his shoulder: “I fucking hate crowds, you know?” He marched up the steps into the mansion. 

He had only gone about 20 feet down the hall before Bobby ran past and cut him off, wearing a grin that could light up the Stygian depths. 

“This is excellent! You and me are going to have an amazing day! Except for, like, Kitty and a few staff, we have the whole Mansion to ourselves! We can…” he looked around and lowered his voice, “…get it on anywhere we like! We could do it in a _classroom!_ ” He seemed awed at his own inspiration, and dived in to grab John’s head and plant a wet and hungry kiss on him. 

Despite all the humiliation he had just suffered, John was aroused and amused. “Heh, I used to have a trick who liked to play school principal. You want to be my bad little student, Drake?” 

Bobby’s look of shock was priceless, but just as John was deciding how to shock him further, their attentions were caught by a weird buzzing hum that was growing steadily louder. They looked up and saw a tiny helicopter flying down the hall towards them. Bobby pushed John out of his arms so fast, he fell on his ass. The helicopter slowed until it was hovering just in front of them. Where the pilot’s window would have been was a small video screen, and on it, the face of Forge. 

“Bobby Drake?” came the tinny voice from the onboard speakers. 

“Y-yessir?” 

“I understand you’re my assistant today. Get yourself into some work clothes and join me on the West roof in five minutes.” 

“But… Yes sir, Mr. Forge.” The chopper flew off, doing a stunt circle around a potted palm before disappearing around the corner. “Shit. I forgot that I had to do that. What’re you going to do?” 

John climbed to his feet and dusted off his butt in annoyance. “Play video games, surf porn, shoot heroin, you know.” 

“John!” 

“I’m going to study, moron. That’s why I stayed behind.” 

“Oh, I was wondering.” 

“Although I was also hoping we’d have time for a workout in the gym. A naked workout,” he added with a raised eyebrow. 

Bobby’s grin returned. “Yeah! Okay, um, come and find me later and… we’ll make it work! Totally!” Bobby gave him a fast kiss, and then turned and sprinted down the hall. 

Silence descended on John and with it, the memories of what had just transpired out front. What did they think of him now? How many friends had he just lost in one moment of weakness? He started walking quickly, shaking off the fear with action. _Fuck them,_ he thought. _I don’t need friends; just need to know who’s liable to fuck with me and who’ll leave me be._

It was weird to walk the halls alone. He realized that all this must have been the family home of the Xaviers. What would it have been like to grow up with that kind of money? Money meant security, protection, power — the things the rest of the world had to work and fight for. No wonder the old man could afford to be idealistic. 

He stopped in front of a painting of storm-tossed sailors in a tiny boat that was no match for the waves it was battling. “The Lifeboat, by J. M. W. Turner,” said the brass plaque. Not a print; an original, like in the Metropolitan Museum. John visited the Met on nights when it was free. He felt safe there, surrounded by art; like it was a special place, once-removed from the universe, where the fighting stopped for a minute and everyone just participated in a collective jaw-drop at the fucking majestic beauty of it all. The Mansion sort of felt the same. John wondered how long it would be before free night was over here, too, and he had to go back out to the streets where his kind belonged. 

He left the Turner and continued his private tour, poking his head into different rooms, checking out art and architecture. The place was like an old-fashioned horror movie. He kept expecting ghosts of murdered children in Victorian dress to appear, rattling their chipped porcelain dolls at him and demanding vengeance. This line of thought amused him until he became aware of a creaking behind him and got instantly spooked. He slowly reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo. He turned around, and saw a door slowly opening by itself. 

_*Click, skritch, fwoosh*_ He struck a flame and spun it into a fireball in one fluid motion. 

“Who’s there?! Bobby?” He shouted. “Don’t fuck with me!” 

“St. John? Could I talk to you a minute?” 

It was Dr. Grey. _Right_ , he thought. _Telekinetic._ John took a ragged breath and stepped into the doorway. She was sitting in the spartan office behind a desk whose surface was completely hidden by files and papers. She gave his flame ball a sharp look, and he quickly absorbed it, tucking his lighter back into his jeans. 

“Just ‘John,’ okay?” he told her with an edge, trying to regain his composure. 

“Sorry, I forgot. I sensed you going past. Will you step into my office?” 

“Said the spider to the fly,” he quipped uneasily. 

She laughed. “That’s not much of an insult; I have great admiration for spiders.” 

“I didn’t mean it as an insult, sorry. Why aren’t you in New York with the other teachers?” 

“I have to stay here and look after Jones. All the students are my patients, and that includes you now. Since you’re here and there are no classes, it’s a perfect time to do a physical on you.” 

John shifted uncomfortably. “A physical?” 

“Don’t worry. Just a routine medical exam. Plus I’d like to get some data on your powers.” 

He wanted to refuse. He was passing out bits of himself way too easily. But what choice did he have? He had signed up for the school thing, and she was the doctor. 

Soon they were down in the sub-basement, and if he had felt trapped before, now he felt buried alive. One of the topics of the previous night’s pillow talk had been the secret life of the mansion, including this sci-fi underground realm, and the X-Men with their action costumes and cheery little code names. John had thought the whole thing pretty hilarious when he heard it — too self-important by half — but there was some serious infrastructure around him. Money and power. Turner paintings and big shiny gadgets. 

“Take a deep breath and hold it,” Dr. Grey said as she listened to his heart and lungs with a stethoscope. He was sitting on an examination table with his shirt off, hoping she wasn’t going to hook him up to any of the weird science fiction machines in the room. “Okay, breathe normally. When was the last time you saw a doctor?” 

“Not since I got my powers.” 

“That was probably wise. Your basal temperature is six degrees above the _homo sapiens_ norm. Anyone would know right away you’re a mutant. Remember that if you ever have to see a doctor, okay?” 

“Great,” he mumbled. 

“I sense a lot anxiety, John. Upstairs, too. That’s how I knew you were passing my office. Is everything okay?” 

“I’m fine; I’m not ‘ _anxious_.’ Stop reading my mind, okay?” 

“I wouldn’t do that without permission. Not unless you were in danger. The same goes for Professor Xavier. However, I usually do pick up emotions. I can’t turn that off any more than I can my hearing. Sorry. I need you to undo your pants.” 

He looked her square in the eye and said, “I usually charge for that.” 

She looked over the top of her glasses. “Telepaths are also nearly impossible to shock.” 

He laughed as he unbuttoned his pants. “Great! I love a challenge.” 

“Turn your head and cough.” 

“You’re kind of like one of those guards in London; you always keep a straight face.” 

She was making notes on a computer terminal. “The students say I don’t have a sense of humor.” 

“Hmm, I think they’re wrong. I suspect you have a whole other side that no one else sees, Dr. Grey.” That did make her smile, but she said nothing. “Are you serious about this whole telepathic ethics thing?” 

“Completely serious.” 

“Frankly, if it was me, I’d read everyone. All the time. No one would ever get the jump on me again.” 

She removed her glasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of her lab coat. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to spend so much time inside other people’s heads. I stay out for my own good as much as theirs. You were right that there’s more to me than meets the eye. That’s true of everyone, and if you go digging inside those secret worlds, it can… overwhelm you.” 

He considered her words. “Yeah, I can see that.” 

“So, correct me if I’m missing anything here: your powers consist of pyrokinetic manipulation. You can animate existing flames but not create fire spontaneously.” 

“Yup. Sucks, huh? Why don’t I get the whole package like Drake? He can pop ice-cubes out of thin air.” 

“I wish I knew. How an individual mutant’s powers generate is a mystery. We all have the same X gene, but the range of expression is vast. I have a theory that there is some kind of interaction with an individual’s personality, possibly at a very young age, that leads them to create their own power set.” 

“You mean I _chose_ not to create fire? I don’t think so.” 

“No, ‘chose’ is too strong a word; but it’s possible that we do what we do because of who we are.” 

“The mind reels with metaphorical possibility,” John said. 

“Ah, the writer speaks. Anything else you can do?” 

“Flames doesn’t burn me if I’m concentrating right. Also, I can sense fire within a few hundred feet. It sometimes… uh, this will sound weird. Sometimes it talks to me.” 

Jean raised an eyebrow. “What does it say?” 

“Well, it depends on the fire. Some of them are, um, better spoken than others. Fuck, I sound psychotic.” 

“No, you don’t. You have a deep understanding of fire and a powerful imagination. You are using your artistic mind to help you interpret the data.” She typed some more notes, and John wished he hadn’t mentioned the last part, which was now being digitally immortalized for the amusement of all. He had to learn to shut up around these people. 

“Are we done, Dr. Grey?” 

“Not quite; there’s something else I need to talk to you about.” He eyed her warily. “John, I’d like to screen you for STIs.” 

He wanted the look on his face to say _Fuck off,_ but he was pretty sure he looked ashamed. 

“How long were you on the streets?” 

“I… I was just out a couple of nights before I joined this, um, gang. Then I had to leave in August. So I was on my own for about two months before you found me.” 

“And you were supporting yourself by hustling?” 

She asked it so matter-of-factly that he felt the gray haze of shame lift a bit. He could look her in the eye as he said, “Mostly, yeah. I worked in a diner and then did a bit of squeegee, but the cops bust you faster for that than for peddling your ass.” 

“Ironic. And did you use condoms with your customers?” 

He hesitated because he knew he was going to disappoint her with his answer, though he wasn’t sure why he cared. “Most of the time, but if he told you he wouldn’t pay you, you didn’t insist.” 

“Okay.” 

“I apologize for my bizarre pronoun usage,” he muttered, turning away as his face turned red. 

“I’m glad to hear you protected yourself most of the time. I’m going to do a urethral swab to test for bacterial infections, and then I’ll take some blood. Try not to worry. If anything turns up, we’ll deal with it.” 

He was silent as she took her samples. He concentrated on the sound of the air compressors and generators humming behind the steel walls. When she was done, he pulled on the dumb sports t-shirt of Bobby’s he was wearing and buttoned his pants, trying not to think about what bad news she might find hiding in his blood 

“John, it’s very important that you protect yourself and anyone you have sex with. Do you want me to give you some condoms now?” 

“No!” he answered instantly, but then his mind flashed vivid pictures from the day before — Bobby giving him head. What if…? He shut down the thoughts, scared that Dr. Grey had seen them. He saw her look quickly away, but he couldn’t tell if that meant anything. “Yeah… a few would be good.” 

She opened a cabinet and handed him a long snake of condom packages and a small tube of lube. With the tangible proof of his sexuality sitting there in his hands, he felt more exposed than if she’d read his mind. He wanted to be gone from this place. 

“I’ll have the results of your tests tomorrow. We’re using a new, faster HIV test.” 

He winced at the portentous initials. “Dr. Grey… you won’t tell anyone will you?” It sounded weak, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted the past behind him. He didn’t want Xavier to know what he had done, though he realized they must all know he had been a hustler. 

“I’m bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, John. I would never reveal anything from today’s session, whether I learned it through word or telepathy.” 

“Okay, thanks.” 

He slid off the table, and she walked him towards the entrance of the med-lab. Before he left, he noticed curtains drawn around one of the bays. “Hey, is that Jones?” 

“Yes. Would you like to visit with him?” 

“Can he hear me?” 

“We’re not sure, but having visitors might help him. Go ahead. I’ll just clean up for a minute and then walk you back to the elevator.” 

He approached the curtained area and carefully slipped inside. The boy was lying on the bed in green pajamas. The blanket that came up to his chest rose and fell slowly with his breathing. Electrodes on his temples were attached to a machine with brushed aluminum housing and sleek black buttons. The display showed a shifting psychedelic dance of light which made John wonder just what kind of trippy shit went on in the kid’s head. Scariest of all, Jones’ eyes were open, staring. Every few seconds he’d blink mechanically, but there didn’t seem to be anyone home. 

Now that he was standing there, John didn’t know what to do or say. “Hey, Jones. I’m John. We haven’t really met. I mean, you saw me a couple of times, but you were already orbiting Jupiter by then. Anyway, Doug tells me you’re really smart. Maybe you’ll help me with math when you’re better. I mean, Kitty’s supposed to, but she looks like a real bitch, you know?” He smiled, but his audience wasn’t appreciating his routine. 

He waved a hand a few times in front of the open eyes, but there was no response. He abruptly felt a stab of sadness for the broken little guy. Unbidden, a lullaby popped into his head. He had forgotten about it. She had sung it to him when he was small and sick with a fever that made the world feel far away. _Go away, cat, standing in the corner, trying to get my baby…_ He clamped down firmly on the unwelcome memory. 

“I hear that asshole Summers cut you off TV. That guy is such a Nazi, huh?” John looked up at the monitor that hung over the bed. “Hey, maybe we can get you something on this. Bet you like Family Guy. Let’s see…” He pushed some buttons and gave himself a small cheer as he found the cable TV feed. He quickly muted the sound. 

“How about that, Jones? Not bad, huh?” He flipped channels a few times. “Well, morning TV is all for housewives and unemployed drunks, but it’ll get better. You get better too, okay?” He reached over and squeezed the kid’s small shoulder. He slipped out of the cubicle, closing the curtains carefully to hide the illicit broadcast. “Dr. Grey? You there? I’m ready to leave.” 

_Go away cat, go away cat. No, you can’t have my baby…_

 

Having spent the better part of the morning with Dr. Grey, John decided he would study for her biology class. He grabbed the textbook from his room and headed off to what he decided was a perfect study spot. 

He opened a window in an unused third-floor room and climbed out onto the roof. Fifteen feet down the vast expanse of slate shingle, Bobby was straining to hold up a small satellite dish as Forge attached a series of wires to the underside. The small helicopter was there, flying around purposefully. There were also several small robots with large swiveling monitors for heads and big rubber tires, who were moving back and forth with equipment, apparently at the dark, sexy man’s silent bidding. 

“Hey, John!” Bobby shouted happily when he noticed him standing there. “You want to give me a hand holding this up?” 

“It’s not my detention, is it?” John replied. He sat down with his back to the dormer and opened his text. 

“Thanks a whole lot,” Bobby snarled, and John smiled behind his book. 

The cool air was pleasant and the view stunning. Gray clouds scuddered low on the horizon, like a ruffle on the blue quilt of the sky. He looked out at the denuded trees and wondered if he’d still be here in the spring when they turned green. A strange sense of dislocation passed through him. Two days earlier, he’d been struggling to survive on the streets, and now here he was on the roof of a country mansion, reading through vaguely familiar material on DNA as if he were still in Syracuse and his school career hadn’t been blown off the road by a head-on collision with fate. And just down the slope, the strange figure of Bobby Drake who had exploded into his life like an airbag. 

John tried to study, but he found himself watching the pair as they attached the satellite dish to a stand that they’d bolted to the roof. Forge was excellent eye candy, but it was Bobby who was the biggest distraction. John loved the way the long muscles of his roommate’s bare arms flexed as he shifted the dish around. The strain of his splayed legs made John want to climb in between the wide V of his cargo pants and play a joyous tune with his mouth. Of course, blowjobs seemed to be Drake’s specialty. As he remembered the overwhelming feeling of cumming in that excellent mouth, he felt a twinge of panic about his blood tests. _What if I gave Bobby something?_

“Hey, Mr. Forge,” Bobby exclaimed, providing John a welcome interruption from dark thoughts. “What time is it?” 

Forge consulted one of the robots’ screens. “11:15.” 

“The rally just started! Can we go inside and watch a bit of the web feed?” 

Forge said nothing, but pushed a few buttons on his bionic arm. John could suddenly hear the sound of an amplified speech and the response of a crowd as Bobby stared with delight at the monitor on one of the robots. Forge looked up at John and pushed more buttons. The other robot began climbing the sloping roof to his position, its screen also displaying the feed. 

“Who’s that?” John shouted over to Bobby. 

“Chad Michael Murray. He played the lead in the Betrayers.” 

From the robot’s speaker came the reverberant voice of the broadcast. “— and I feel, uh, grateful for this chance to say sorry to those in the mutant community I have offended. When we started the project, I had no… Believe me, in my wildest dream I didn’t realize what life must be like for…” 

John snickered. “Backpedaling as fast as he can.” 

“I think it’s cool he’s there. Brave of him,” Bobby insisted. 

John heard Forge’s deep voice for the first time. “Bobby, get me the reciprocal saw — the one with the blue handle — and follow me over by the chimneys.” John watched them move further down the roof where Forge cut a neat hole in the shingles and packed unnamable electronics down inside. 

John turned from the monitor and began reading his biology text, letting the sound of cheering, chanting and commentary fade to a backdrop that he only checked out when the pitch of excitement rose. 

“…a crime against innocent Americans…” 

“…the Union Movement sends out its support to our mutant brothers and sisters…” 

“…Susan and I hope to initiate a project about a mutant violinist whose dream it is to play Carnegie Hall…” 

A sudden squawk made him look up, and he could hear Summers’s voice speaking in quiet, urgent tones over the picture. “I’ve done a perimeter check, but no sign of Derek. Anything, Storm?” 

“Negative, Cyclops,” he heard Ms. Monroe reply. “I wish I could get airborne. It’s impossible to see from here in the crowd.” 

John looked over to Bobby who shouted back, “Forge got us Scott’s com feed. Cool, huh?” 

Scott again: “Okay, Professor X is coming up to speak. I’m doing a sweep for any snipers.” 

John’s mouth dropped open. He peered closer at the screen as a rooftop camera panned over the crowd. There were a few thousand attending the rally, completely filling the street in front of the network building on 5 th Avenue. A stage with banks of speakers had been erected and a banner over it read, “Mutants are your children, not your Betrayers.” More hand-painted signs dotted the crowd, though he couldn’t read them. Riot police, anonymous and inhuman in their black armored uniforms, stood just beyond the protestors, looking more like they were about to attack than protect. 

The camera panned and zoomed with a lurch, and there was Professor Xavier wheeling towards the microphone. _Snipers? Who would want to hurt the old man?_ John wondered nervously. A different camera angle picked up his smiling teacher as he shook hands with Tim Robbins and various organizers on the stage. He was handed a wireless microphone and he turned to the crowd, giving a broad wave. 

“Hello, good morning. My name is Charles Xavier and I have been working with mutants for more than 15 years as a psychologist and a political activist.” A smattering of cheers and applause could be heard. “This gathering is the most public display of mutants ever, and I am proud to see so many here to express their concern about the network’s broadcast.” 

Someone in the crowd shouted, “No more shit!” which earned a more enthusiastic cheer. The camera swiveled to show the crowd, and now John could read their signs: “Mutant rights now!” and “We’re not your enemies.” 

Xavier continued. “Indeed, as you say, we do not wish to see this type of programming again. Unfortunate as this event has been — and the violence that followed it is testament to the destructive power of such propaganda — I believe that some good can come of it. We stand here today, in the streets of New York, to show America that mutants are not a hidden monster in their midst, but bold new members of its diverse society, ready to contribute to and enhance this great nation. 

“As a land of immigrants, we have always looked outwards to receive our newest inhabitants but, as the poet Alice Goodman wrote, ‘Let the Statue of Liberty turn her gaze a little. Let her see what lies inland.’ Mutants are the new arrivals to this constantly-changing landscape and we must look…” 

A squawk of static and Ororo’s voice overtook Xavier’s. “Cyclops, the Friends of Humanity protestors are looking restless. Do you have a clear shot if one of them tries anything?” 

“Affirmative.” 

John suddenly wished he was there. He wanted to be standing up on stage with a flame ball beside the Professor, ready to take out anyone who dared try anything. 

“…a bold new day. So let us keep our dreams alive as we let the network know that we are watching, that we will not tolerate this treatment.” 

“Where’s the president of the network?” someone shouted, and the crowd growled in agreement. 

More voices: “We want an apology!” “Defend your rights!” “Magneto!” 

The Professor looked out seriously at the crowd as one of the organizers nervously whispered in his ear. The mood was shifting; a chant of “Apologize! Apologize!” had started. The organizer took the microphone and called for calm, but her voice was all but inaudible. 

Ororo again: “Cyclops, there! Coming onto the stage from the right!” 

Scott: “Shit, circle around to the left, I’m going to try to get a better angle in case I need a shot!” 

John was pressed close to the screen, cursing as the cameras swooped in confusion. There! Running past the guards and grabbing the mike from the organizer. It was Derek and someone with him, that other guy from the group… 

“It’s Tonio!” Bobby shouted and ran up the roof to join John, squatting in front of the little robot. 

“Yo, New York!” Derek shouted. “They called us Betrayers! They called us murderers! Are we gonna take it?” and the crowd shouted back, “NO!” 

He was moving around the stage, shadowed by Tonio, staying two steps ahead of the organizers who were trying to get the mike back, like someone chasing a dog around the yard. Derek was in shiny black sweats, his red face and hands shining brightly in the sun. Tonio had pulled off his shades to reveal his oversized mutant eyes that made him look like some kind anthropo-morphic lizard. Derek pointed a finger over the heads of the crowd and shouted, “Billy, hit it!” 

Beats! A thumping hip-hop groove suddenly pulsed over the street, and the crowd whooped in approval. 

“What the…?” Bobby asked as Derek and Tonio broke into absurd posing choreography and began rhyming: 

“Today, united for MUTANT UPRISING / And the sapiens SAPS are in for surprising / We’re driving this striving for a day JUSTICE / Just us and you and YOU GOTTA TRUST US!” 

They were leaning in to share the mike while they kept dancing. The performance was a shambles of dropped lines and dropped microphone, but they weren’t stopping. John and Bobby gave each other a shocked look and then jumped to their feet, spontaneously dancing to the unexpected show. 

“There’s a thousand SOUNDS and thousand VOICES / There’s choices and CRISIS and prices to PAY / And a DAY OF RECKONING, beckoning / It’s SICKENING how they call us BETRAYERS / We’re slayers of HYPOCRICY!” 

The performers got lost for a minute, arguing about which verse came next. Derek gestured to the crowd to keep dancing and clapping as Tonio dug into his back pocket for a lyric sheet. Somehow, it should have been a disaster, but a shot of the crowd showed everyone grooving to beat, waving their signs, buoyed by the fearless absurdity of the duo. Up on the roof of the mansion, the boys danced, too and John stopped to yell out into the Westchester air: 

“Mutant rights now!!” 

And Bobby joined him, both boys yelling, “Mutant rights now!!” until the groundskeeper’s dog ran across the lawn and started barking up them, as if he, too, were ready to fight for their place in the world. 

When the protest was over, they ate sandwiches with Forge up on the roof and listened without much comprehension as he tried to explain how the new systems worked. They were more interested in a close-up inspection of his bionic arms and leg. 

“Anymore bionic parts, Mr. Forge?” John asked, glancing down at the guy’s crotch. 

Forge was nonplussed. “Yup. With three vibrating speeds. Makes me popular with the ladies, I’ll tell you.” John guffawed, and Bobby almost slipped off the roof in surprise. He looked completely uncomfortable, and that made John laugh harder. 

Forge had lots of plans for Bobby, and so he and John never managed to get off on the teacher’s table in the cafeteria (which was John’s idea). Instead, John finished his biology chapter and then tracked down Kitty for a math lesson. She had spent her detention day doing dull computer maintenance, and seemed happy for the distraction. 

They got off to a good start, and John was impressed by how well she could organize the lesson, getting the difficult concepts across better than anyone else ever had. After 45 minutes, his brains were full, and he pushed the text away and stretched. 

“You picked that up fast, John,” Kitty told him. 

“You explained it well.” 

“Thanks. I’m thinking maybe I should be a professor,” she replied and checked his face to see what he thought of that. 

“Dream big, girl. So, you and that Lance guy, huh? The one who left with Magneto.” 

Her face darkened. “Yes.” 

“Drag.” She scowled down into the math book, and he had the sense she was holding herself back. John knew it would be politic to drop it, but something in him wanted to push. “And what about Drake? You and him were an item, too, I heard.” 

She shot him a dirty look. “Not really.” 

“That’s what I heard…” 

She tried to sound uninterested. “I don’t know what we were.” 

John leaned in closer. “You shouldn’t be so nasty to Bobby, you know. He breaks too easily.” 

“Is that what you think? You don’t know him, John. He acts like a big victim, but frankly, I wouldn’t trust him. He has his big smile and his award-winning empathy, but underneath, I think there are a lot of little secrets, and if you try to get too close, he’ll bite. Of course, he’ll be smiling and apologizing when he does.” 

John felt like he had been slapped. Now it was Kitty’s turn to stare him down. It took him a second to snap out of his shock and give her a Fujita 4 scowl. “Like you’re the big expert,” was the best comeback he could muster. 

She just shrugged. “Want to go back to the lesson?” 

He got up, his head buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. “Nah, I don’t think I can take anymore today. I mean, math. We’ll do it some other time. Uh, thanks,” he managed. 

She gave him a satisfied smile. “No charge.” 

His head continued to buzz as he marched through the halls without a clear destination. Fate brought him across Bobby’s path, and he acquiesced to his weary roommate’s appeal for help in putting away Forge’s mysterious equipment. 

Forge had commandeered one of the unused rooms off the foyer, and here the boys attempted to match the shapes of various unnamable tools with the foam-lined crates where they lived. Neither boy spoke much during the operation; Bobby due to his fatigue, and John because he was watching Bobby for some corroboration of Kitty’s claims. What kind of secrets could he have? Much as he liked him, John had never thought of Bobby as having any kind of hidden depths. 

Now he felt like he might be trapped in the room with a whole different Bobby Drake, an alien double maybe. Furthermore, John found the room itself claustrophobic and unsettling. It was filled with various machines of indefinite purpose which stared at him and blinked, as if measuring him for an invasive brain probe that they were preparing with exacting malevolence deep in their chassis. This time it was John who pulled back when Bobby tried to kiss him. 

It was around 4:30 and they were just latching the last of the carrying cases when they heard the sound of the students bursting in through the front door. Bobby didn’t hesitate to run out and greet them, but John held back. He could hear snatches of excited conversation through the open door as they shared with Bobby everything about the protest: Derek and Tonio, the celebrities, and the sinister presence of both the riot squad and the Friends of Humanity counter-protestors. 

John moved closer to the door, but stood back in the shadows watching the happy kids. He figured the day must have brought the group even closer together, making him even more of an outsider. He noticed some had shopping bags with them, and that was the first time he realized he had no money of his own. He was both an outsider and a prisoner of this place. Not only that, after that morning’s public breakdown he probably had no friends here either. 

He was wishing that they would all clear out of the foyer so he could escape unseen, when the lights in the room started flashing. A robot head, looking like a vacuum cleaner’s evil cousin, rose up from its place on the wall with a whir of servos. “This room is returning to restricted status; you will leave this room immediately. Authorization: Forge 8-5-7-3-Echo.” 

John made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “eep!” and bolted from the room, practically knocking over Doug and Rahne as he raced for the stairs. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby had found his time with Forge tiring and boring. The mutant inventor seemed lost in thought most of the time, leaving his assistant waiting long minutes in silence for orders. However, after his fellow students returned, life flowed again through Bobby’s veins. 

The protest had changed the context of the students’ lives at the school. Most of them had been isolated as mutants before they got here. Now, suddenly, they were part of a larger group. Today they had stood in public and shouted for their rights, for their place in the world. After dinner, they watched news reports about the protests and shouted back at the screen when anti-mutant “experts” put in their two-cents. 

Doug was glued to the tumultuous post-protest discussion on GenePool, and called them over to watch the shocking moment when the online community split in two. 

_Acid4Blood >We hereby announce th creation of a new com for mutant_   
_direct action:_   
_Acid4Blood >OmegaRevolt is ground zero of the new wolrd order_   
_FlyMIND >ur wrecking our com! This is a place 4 every1!!!_   
_spikestrike >We follow Magneto’s principels at OmegaRevolt. We are_   
_homo superior!_   
_Acid4Blood >No more time to be whining, “I’m a mutant, daddy hates_   
_me”. Time 4 action. Time for politics_   
_Shadowcat >Mutants supporting each other IS political. This is_   
_bullshit grandstanding._   
_spikestrike >Get angry! Get tattooed!! _

Bobby was frustrated at the way John distanced himself from the excitement. His roommate sat back, looking either cynical or depressed, reading his way through textbooks as if the protest and all the fallout from it didn’t matter. At least he hadn’t retreated to their room, Bobby noticed. At one point, Terry pulled Bobby aside and told him about the weird incident in the morning when John wouldn’t get into the car. Bobby wondered how he would bring it up with him, if he even dared. 

Everyone was still keyed up when it was time to head upstairs, so discussions continued in the dorms. It was nearly midnight, and Peter and Sam were still talking with Bobby. 

“I don’t know how much the Professor would let us get involved in more political action, Sam,” Peter cautioned. “They’re really trying to protect us.” 

Sam writhed in frustration. “But it’s our future! X loves to go on about Gandhi and MLK, but then he wants us to watch from the sidelines.” 

“Just for a couple of years, Sam,” Bobby reassured him. “He just wants to make sure we have more options before we decide how to become involved with the fight.” 

“Well, I want to be an X-Man, end of story,” Sam declared. “What about you, Bobby?” 

Bobby felt like he was being pressured to make a decision he wasn’t at all sure about. “Shit, I don’t know. Maybe, yeah I guess. Now I just want to help Andi get the youth group going again. She’s fighting the board at the Youth Center over it.” 

He looked up at John who was sitting on his bed, still reading. Only he wasn’t reading when Bobby looked up; he was watching him with an unsettling intensity. Their eyes met, but Bobby didn’t feel like they were communicating anything. Then John vanished back into his book. 

“Are you still here?” 

The boys all turned and saw Terry standing in the doorway. 

“Hey, you aren’t supposed to be in Boys’ Wing this late!” Sam scolded with a delighted smile. 

She acted offended. “No, that just applies to you dirty boys coming over to our wing to take away our innocence.” 

Doug appeared at her side and asked, “Did you give it to him, Sam?” 

Terry gave Sam a sharp look. “No, he forgot it in the rec room.” She held up a shiny black plastic shopping bag. “John, we got this for you in the City.” 

“Oh, shit,” Sam mumbled with apologetic glances, first at Terry, then at John. “I got kind of carried away with what-all we were talking about.” 

John looked puzzled, almost angry. “For me? What the fuck?” 

Doug grabbed the bag from Terry and pushed past her into the room, presenting the package to the older boy with a big grin, before backing off to a safe distance. John looked like he was scared to open the bag, like it was a trick, like it might contain a dog turd. He reached in and pulled out a new t-shirt. He looked up, surprised and found six sets of eyes watching him nervously. 

“Okay, don’t shit yourselves,” he told them. 

He shook the folds out of the shirt and held it up, blinking. He turned it around so everyone could see: a vivid red flame on black material. 

Sam gave him a crooked, non-committal smile. “We couldn’t have you wearing Bobby’s stupid snowboarding shirts for the rest of the year.” 

Terry added. “Yeah, baby blue is totally not your color.” 

Bobby didn’t even react to the comments on his wardrobe. He found himself holding his breath, unable to guess how John would react. He watched John’s hands tighten on the material. Bobby felt sure that his next words would be something like, I don’t need your damned charity! 

But John looked up at them almost sheepishly. “I don’t know what to say.” 

“Heh, and he calls himself a big writer,” Sam said as he stood up and joined Terry at the door. “You could try ‘thank you’.” 

“That’s not his style,” Doug told Sam. “Hey, John, if you want to thank us, just say, ‘You guys are a bunch of fucking nerds.” 

John burst out with a barking laugh, like the first gush from the tap after you turn the water pressure back on. “You guys are the biggest fucking nerds ever, is the fact of the matter.” Bobby let his breath go in relief. 

“You’re welcome,” Terry answered with a grin and whapped Sam in the bicep just because. 

“It’s a nice t-shirt, John,” Peter said, standing up to tower over everyone else in the crowded room. “Have a good night, Bobby.” He moved to the door, and that seemed to finally signal the end of the evening. 

Sam said a shy good night to Terry as she slipped away. He was the last to leave, standing in their doorway with a sad puppy look on his face. “I hate being a fucking high-schooler. You want someone so badly and you can’t just say so.” He gave a big sigh which morphed into a yawn, then turned and left, closing their door behind him. 

Bobby instantly jumped on top of John, throwing his book onto the floor. “Yeah, being a lonely high-schooler SUCKS!” He kissed him all over his face and began pulling the much-maligned blue snowboarding shirt from his body, hungry to have John’s heat against his flesh. He could feel John responding, his body arching to meet him, his breath coming faster. But then he abruptly pushed Bobby away and pulled himself back against the wall. 

“Hold it, hold it!” he shouted. 

Bobby felt all his gears grinding. “What?! Did I do something wrong?” 

John was staring at him as he had all evening, but now there was something more desperate in the look. “What do you want from me, Bobby?” he asked, panting. “I want to know!” 

Bobby sat back on the bed, confused, trying to figure out what John wanted to hear. “I don’t know, what do you mean? I-I don’t want anything. I mean, I want to be your friend… I-I feel —” 

“What? What do you feel?!” John pressed. Bobby knew that he had to give the right answer, but he didn’t know what that was. He was suddenly terrified. 

“I don’t know; I’ve never felt it before. It’s… it’s really big. Really real. I don’t know. Maybe… maybe I love you.” He hadn’t planned on saying that, but as soon the words were out, he was dumbfounded by their magnitude. He felt like he had just become an adult in one moment. He looked at John expectantly, but John just shook his head. 

“No, I don’t care about love,” he answered, angry again. “That’s… it’s all just words. It has no worth, no grit. You just slide down smooth words like ‘love’ and fall to your death.” 

Bobby felt like he had opened up the door of his heart only to have his soul plundered. Tears sprung to his eyes. “So… what do you want to hear? What should I tell you?” 

John lost his hard look, and Bobby could see he was scared, too. He got up on his knees, taking his wrists in two strong hands. “I want you to promise me.” 

“What?” 

“That you won’t betray me. Bobby, people say ‘love’ and ‘friend’ and all that shit everyday, and then they fuck each other over.” He was talking faster, his voice becoming hoarse with emotion. “I don’t have anyone, do you understand? My mom didn’t care when her new man tried to kill me. I had teachers at school said they’d help me, and then did nothing! So I trusted Keever when he took me in, and then… then he tried to sell my ass so he could stay in business. After that, I swore that I wouldn’t let myself get weak again, that I’d just trust me and only me, and then I’d be safe.” 

Bobby’s tears spilled over. _He’s gonna leave me, he’s gonna leave_ , he thought desperately. 

But John pushed on. “But when I called you, asked you to come and save me… when I told Xavier I’d be his student, I went back on my own word. Do you understand? I’m risking it all here. And I don’t care if you ‘love me’ or ‘dream about me’ or whatever those slippery ice words are. I just need to know you won’t betray me, too.” 

“John —” 

“Do you promise?!!” 

Bobby swallowed and snorted up his tear-snot. “Yes. I promise I won’t ever betray you, John. I…” He was about to say ‘I love you’ again but stopped himself. The unexpressed words tasted like fire on his tongue. 

John took a deep breath and let it go with a shuddering hiss. “Okay, good.” John got off the bed and went to his dresser. He opened the top drawer and came out holding something which he brought to Bobby. It was a condom package. Calmer now, he said, “I need you to fuck me.” 

He handed Bobby the condom and started to undress himself. Bobby sat frozen, the condom in his outstretched fingers like the flag of a country he couldn’t name, as John’s slim, hard body was revealed, his cock already erect. Confused as he felt, Bobby was hard, too. 

“Open the package,” John told him as he lay down on the bed. Bobby did, taking the slippery condom out. It reminded him of a jellyfish, but it was also really sexy. He put it on the night stand and started peeling off his clothes as quickly as he could, throwing them to the floor and pulling himself against John’s body, kissing his shoulders, neck, face. 

“Bobby,” John interrupted. “Bobby! Just… just do it. I need you in me. Now.” He was breathing fast and he turned on his side, putting his back against his confused lover. 

Bobby was suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know… what I’m doing.” 

John sat up and grabbed the condom. He put an experienced hand on Bobby’s erection which caused a tight squeal of pleasure. “Hey! Drake, don’t you cum yet!” 

“O-okay. Then don’t stroke it or anything.” 

John rolled the condom onto Bobby who gritted his teeth to keep from cumming. He looked down at his sheathed meat and thought, _this is really happening!_ John was holding something; a small silvery tube whose top he now unscrewed. He squeezed some onto the head of Bobby’s erection. 

“Anointing the king! Okay, put some in my ass, too,” he instructed, handing Bobby the little tube of lubricant. 

“With my finger?” 

“No, moron, with your baseball glove. Of course with your finger.” John turned his back to Bobby again and pulled his knees to his chest. 

“Weird…” 

“What?!” 

“I’ve never seen an asshole before.” 

“You mean even your own?” 

“It looks like a brain in a jar in some science fiction movie.” 

“Will you shut up and lube me?” Bobby squeezed the lubricant onto his finger and touched the brain gingerly, half expecting it to say ‘I want to live again, Doctor!’ He pushed, and his finger slid inside. 

John grunted quietly and Bobby asked, “Is it okay?” 

“Yeah, keep going, squeeze some more lube onto it.” 

Bobby did and pushed it in with his finger, amazed at the heat inside. “Am I supposed to put in more fingers? Open you up? Isn’t there something where you do, like, this scissoring motion?” 

John looked over his shoulder. “Shit, don’t believe everything you read in porn, Drake. Fingers…” he grunted and moaned again, and Bobby could see he was jacking his cock gently. “…are full of bones. Cocks feel better. They bend right.” 

“I don’t think mine is gonna bend at all,” Bobby breathed as he put the head of the hardest erection of his life against John’s opening. “I’m pushing in now… wait… I gotta fix the angle. This is… unh… hard to do… There!” The head of his penis popped inside and John jerked under him. “Oh fuck, John… Are you okay?” 

“Okay… okay, Bobby, it’s good… just hold it there…” 

Bobby tried, but it was like he was being pulled in, like he couldn’t stop himself from making little thrusts that moved him in bit by bit, and John was writhing, moaning against him and it felt better than anything… the heat, the tight power of that hole. 

John was breathing fast through his mouth, and Bobby could feel him tense. “Does it hurt, John?” 

“Yeah, but it’s okay… it’ll be okay in a… second…” John put a hand between his legs and reached back, feeling the base of Bobby’s dick. “Are you all the way in?” 

“Yeah.” 

“All of you? All the way inside me?” His voice was shaking. 

“Yeah, all of me. It feels so fucking good.” 

“Yeah, to me too. Please, fuck me, Bobby, but really gentle, please.” 

Bobby began to move, and it felt so perfect, like something he had forgotten he always knew how to do. And his cock felt like it was huge — a cucumber, the Goodyear Blimp — and as he pushed faster in and out, he knew he wouldn’t last long. 

John was jacking himself off, growling and crying and hissing and swearing _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ and then he came and Bobby could feel the contractions of his ass, and John’s orgasm ignited his, like a fireball, and he pushed in and heard himself make a strangled noise in his throat as he came and came and came. A world of sensation muted his senses, and he thought he could hear John say from somewhere far away beside him: 

“I believe you, I believe you, Bobby.” 


	19. Friends Like These, Part 1

Over the days following Halloween, Mike Haddad was occasionally aware of the significance of what was happening to him. For moments, at least, he understood that this was a turning point in his life, that he was bursting transformed from the chrysalis of himself. Not that he was in control of the process… 

Halloween night. Mike’s mother looked suspicious almost from the moment he walked in the door. Somehow, through mom-psychic-power (were all mothers secretly mutants?), she knew something more had happened at the Spiderhole than her son was letting on. He knew she didn’t approve of his costume, of his girlfriend, or the whole change in his attitude since the beginning of the school year. He knew she knew he was up to something. 

Of course, she couldn’t have guessed that he had just led a group of mutant youth in standing up to three cars full of thugs with baseball bats. That was not the kind of news she needed to hear about her always-been-good, destined-for-med-school boy. Mike used the warm fog of his father’s cheery nostalgia to hide from a confrontation with her. 

It was kind of embarrassing how delighted his dad seemed that his son was sowing some oats, or whatever the Lebanese equivalent of that expression might be. The whole way back in the car, Mike and Jubilee had been treated to reminiscences of his supposedly fancy-free youth in Beirut. Mike even caught his dad watching with a grin through the side mirror when he gave Jubilee a goodnight kiss outside her Auntie Bao’s house. 

“Our son really know how to pick the best ladies,” he told his wife as he planted a kiss on her unimpressed cheek. “Just like me.” Mike took that moment to run up the stairs, throwing a hasty ‘good-night’ at his mother who returned it with an eyeful of recrimination and a familiar set to her mouth that meant trouble. 

He knew it was risky to get online, but he couldn’t resist. And there she was — his very own “best lady” — so it was all worth it: 

___Pafs >ur my hero, Michael Haddad_   
_Haddadada >just want 2b ur bf, jubes_   
_Pafs >if I was there now what wud u do?_   
_Hadadada >ru still wearing ur costume?_   
_Pafs >Not 4 long. _

“Michael?” 

The door swung open, and Mike jumped as if he’d already had it out. 

“Yeah, dad?” 

“Computer off and go to sleep now. It’s good you had your fun, but school is the priority, yes?” 

“Okay, Dad. Thanks for… thanks for everything tonight.” 

As Mike said goodbye to Jubilee and shut down his computer, he could hear his parents fighting about him. 

 

_Stand on your own WILL if you really think you’re right_   
_Cause this country is a SHAM, and politicians are a BORE!_   
_We won’t live that way no we won’t do it ANYMORE!!_   
   – “Conformity” by Global Threat 

One truth was undeniable: no matter what amazing thing happened in the night — experimenting with drugs or literature, losing your virginity, re-inventing the very meaning of life — when the morning came, you still ended up back in the daily humiliation and routine torture that was high school. The cafeteria was particularly painful the next day, full of primal dramas, plumage and posturing that could put a zoo to shame. 

“You’re my hero, Mike Haddad!” Rayen squealed and hugged him from behind. She put down her lunch tray and sat down on Mike’s right. 

Jubilee dropped her lunch box loudly on the table and sat herself to his left. She glared over his hunched back at her friend. “Hey, he’s my mutant warrior, not yours.” 

Rayen covered one side of her face with a chubby hand decorated in five or six silver rings. She half-uncovered it, revealing for Jubes alone the word “bitch” that she had brought up on her cheek in tiny red letters. 

Jubilee gasped and looked around, and then broke into her raucous laugh, jumping up to hug her friend even as Rayen suppressed the mutant letters before anyone could notice. 

Mike was oblivious to all this, staring angrily at the corner-stapled pages in front of him, which were decorated as rudely and redly as Rayen’s cheek had been, with a large, vindictive “C+.” 

“Fuck him,” Mike scowled. 

Jubilee kissed the shaggy hair on his head. “It’s just one paper. You’ll make up the mark on the final, Mike.” 

“No! I worked really hard on this essay. He’s just pissed because I’m criticizing Lincoln’s politics. Lincoln only banned slavery to fuck with the South’s economy, not because he was a great humanitarian!” He flipped pages with an angry snap, literally seeing red. “Shit, listen to this: ‘You ignore the symbolic power of Lincoln’s life to those of us who were born in this country.’ What kind of racist bullshit is that? I was born in America, too! Just because my parents are immigrants —” 

“I hear Lincoln was gay,” Jubilee said as she bit into an apple, the only part of her lunch which seemed to interest her. 

Mike blinked. “That’s… What are you talking about?” 

“Yeah, he wrote in his diaries about these guys who kept him warm on cold Washington nights.” 

Mike dropped his head into his hands. “That’s totally irrelevant. And crazy.” 

She pulled a newspaper from her bag, already folded back to a small item on an inner page. “Forget the stupid essay; you’ll like this.” 

“Mutant Community Responds with Outrage to TV Movie,” read the headline. It was just a few inches of story, but it cheered him right up. Mutant rights organizers and sympathizers were already talking about a protest in New York on Friday. 

“Oh wow, can you imagine if we could be there?” Mike said and felt again the previous night’s rush of glory when the bullies had turned tail and run. 

By the time he got online that evening, the protest had been officially announced and the boards were full of talk. It was just after 10:00, and he was in an IM chat with Xeno Evil. 

_Haddadada >If I could afford to miss school, I’d so be there._   
_XenoEvil >I cud go but mom gets 2 worried about me_   
_Haddadada >Why? you skip a lot of classes?_   
_XenoEvil >No. I don’t go to school. had to drop out_   
_Haddadada >Why? What do you mean had to?_   
_XenoEvil >They found out._   
_Haddadada >That you’re a mutant? What happened to you?_   
_XenoEvil >Doesn’t matter. Mom’s helping me with home schooling. More_   
_time to make music this way._   
_Haddadada >Did the school throw you out or did you quit?_   
_XenoEvil >U don’t understand, Ok? I don’t talk about it_   
_Haddadada >OK. I understand_   
_XenoEvil >NO U DONT._   
_Haddadada >OK sorry_   
_XenoEvil > They hurt me_   
_Haddadada >You don’t have to tell me._   
_Haddadada >OK? Xeno?_   
_Haddadada >u there?_   
_XenoEvil >Worst one was after gym. locker room. They held me down. poured_   
_aftershave on my emitters. Never felt pain like that. begging the mutherfukers._   
_begging them like a baby._

Mike had stopped breathing. He thought about the nodules on the underside of Xeno’s arms, and the amazing, screaming balls of light that flew from them. During the battle in the SpiderHole’s parking lot, Xeno had used his power to fill the air with magnificent confusion that had helped assure their victory. His light banshees were beautiful, like Jubilee’s fireworks, like Rayen’s tattoos — beautiful precisely because they were unique and new to the world. 

A minute passed. Mike stared at the words on the screen and wondered what it had cost the proud boy to reveal his shame. He felt the weight of that trust, and swore to himself to honor it and to repay it someday. 

_Haddadada >You have th right to attend school. Why not fight for it?_   
_XenoEvil >Cuz hi-school is a brainwash factory anyway. I’m getting real_   
_education now. What about u? U do yer homework for Professor Hardcore?_   
_Haddadada >Yessir, Prof, sir! I downloaded the Anti-Flag song. It’s cool._   
_XenoEvil >Theyre not afraid to say all the things Americans don’t want 2_   
_hear. But then they fucked up and signed with big corporate money. Lesson:_   
_U can’t trust anyone!!!_

As Mike received his Punk 101 illustrated lecture, he was imagining Friday’s protest: millions of mutants of all shapes, sizes, and hues — shouting in the street, maybe invading the network offices! He had read about a planned ’Net feed, and suddenly an idea occurred to him. He had little trouble finding the right image online. He opened PhotoShop and began designing. 

 

_Of course you’ll bring no change_   
_When you sit home on your couch!_   
_We need to stand up and FIGHT_   
_Bring our future to a start!!_   
   – “Rotten Future” by Anti-Flag 

The sun rose brightly the next morning, the air cold and clear, and Mike was getting a haircut. 

Impatient drums and pissed-off guitars screamed from Jubilee’s portable stereo which had been dragged into service in the bathroom. With the hardcore assault as soundtrack, Mike stared with delight at his reflection in the mirror. He turned his head back and forth — from the left side, where the hair spilled over his ear, to the right where a clean-shaved expanse of olive skin opened like a vista of endless adventure. 

This two-faced aspect was something of a parlor-trick: turn one way and you had Haddad the good son, on the road to professional respectability. Do a lateral 180, and you met the new-minted punk who understood that the halls of authority had been built to hide the truth. Armed with righteous anger and half a Mohawk, it was Mike the Rebel’s mission to break down those walls. 

Jubilee, too, stared into the mirror, but with scowling, objective intensity. Standing behind her boyfriend, she made final adjustments, her scissors circling and diving in precise, staccato strokes. Finally, she seemed satisfied. 

“There,” she shouted over the music, a wicked smile blooming on her features. “You are hotter than hot.” She popped her bubblegum loudly. 

“Does that make you want to do anything?” he asked hopefully. 

“Yeah, open a salon.” 

“C’mon, your Aunt’s at work! We could —” 

She pulled the towel off his shoulders, shaking the clippings to the floor. “Michael, I already missed Spanish this morning because you couldn’t wait to get buzzed. I can’t miss Math, too.” 

He swallowed his horny disappointment. “I know. And I appreciate it. Really! I just needed to do this now, okay?” 

She responded by breaking into a wild, arm-flinging dance to the music he had forced on her. He ducked as the open scissors swung dangerously close, her reckless abandon stoking his furnace even hotter; but then she snapped off the player, reset her haughty dignity, and marched purposefully from the room, saying over her shoulder, “Clean up, boy.” 

“Okay,” he muttered, and contemplated his shaved half again. Seen in the context of his bare torso, it looked even more provocative and daring. He considered taking one of Jubilee’s Sharpies and giving himself an omega tattoo like the one Xeno sported. No, he realized. He had no right to that emblem. He was not a mutant, even if he was fighting on their behalf. 

When he was done sweeping, he pulled the poster he had designed out his school bag and read it over again. It was inflammatory but true, like a Bad Religion song. He worried about what his parents would think if they knew his plan, and then deliberately banished them from his thoughts. He could make his own decisions about right and wrong. No matter what his history teacher thought, he was born in this country and he would fight for its ideals. 

He knew he was inviting trouble, and trouble accepted the invitation early that afternoon. 

“Stop right where you are. Not another pushpin, Mr. Haddad!” 

Mike turned and stared at Principal Matthews, who seemed to be doing silent movie acting. His body and face twisted with hyperbolic masks of outrage and disbelief as he contemplated both Mike’s poster and new haircut. 

Mike pulled the headphones out of his ears, and a micro-storm of hardcore dissent hissed and yammered from the tiny buds. “Is there a problem, Mr. Matthews?” he said calmly. 

A thin smile of triumph twisted the corners of Matthews’s mouth. “Did you think I was joking when I had you in my office in September?” Mike thought back to his first attempt at bringing mutant awareness to the school and the unceremonious trouncing of the attempt by Matthews. “Did you think I had _forgotten_?!” He tore the poster off the bulletin board and pushpins scattered across the floor. He pored over the offending document like he was combing a crime scene for telltale fibers. 

Mike looked down at the copies in his hand. The image he had downloaded was of a glowering punk in a Mohawk who happened to have a pair of mean, purple horns growing from his brow and a crude omega tattoo across his forehead. Above this compelling image, Mike had written “Mutants Demand Their Rights!” and below, an invitation for students to watch the protest on Friday, via Internet in AV room 3 of the school library. 

Matthews crumpled his copy and took a threatening step towards Mike. “If you think I’m going to allow this kind of attention-seeking provocation —” 

“Mr. Matthews, please, if you’d —” 

“This blatant flouting of my authority —” 

“Mr. Matthews!” Mike shouted loudly enough to make the principal stop short. “Sir, look at the bottom. This poster was approved by Mrs. Genovese at lunch. It’s for a project on contemporary human rights issues in our Social Studies class.” 

The Principal rose suddenly to his full height as if he had been stabbed in the back. He squeezed the paper ball tighter in his fist and brought his face close to Michael’s. “You watch yourself, Mr. Haddad. I don’t allow troublemakers at my school.” He straightened again, adjusted his jacket and stormed back to the office. 

Mike looked around and saw that a small crowd had gathered. They looked somewhere between amused and disturbed. Mike walked up to them, handing out copies of the poster with a friendly, reassuring smile. “You guys should come see this on Friday. It’s going to be really interesting.” 

He didn’t wait for their response, but put the headphones back in his ear and let the adrenaline-surge of the furious vocals soothe and center him. He was sweating rankly and his heart was still pounding as he moved to the next bulletin board. 

 

_And I want to conquer the world_   
_Give all the IDIOTS a brand new religion!_   
_Put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil_   
_Promote EQUALITY in all my decisions!_   
   – “I Want to Conquer the World” by Bad Religion 

On Friday, at the end of second lunch, a small group of kids exited from AV-room 3 comparing notes on what they’d just seen. 

“Do you think they were _all_ mutants?” Rayen whispered awestruck. “Can you imagine if everyone around you was, and they could be open about it? I wanna move to New York!” 

Mike laughed. “No, it’s the same as here, I’ll bet. It’s just that everyone came out because of the protest. If we had something like that, a reason for mutants to be visible —” 

“Nice bunch of freaks, Haddad!” 

Mike came to a halt, looking up at the tall figure of Aaron Hovak, his former basketball teammate. Hovak was standing side-by-side with his perennial sidekick, David Rourke. The sidekick had, if anything, even less wit at his command, and so just glared. 

Most of the group who had been watching the Internet feed seemed to evaporate, leaving Mike, Jubilee and Rayen in a face-off with the pair. 

Mike wouldn’t be goaded. He answered the remark without hostility. “You should have seen the protest, Aaron. We all have a lot to learn about the world.” 

“What I want to learn is why you would trade your teammates for these losers. Look at you! What’s with your hair? You _want_ to be a freak? Mutants? You’re helping mutants?!” Mike could feel his calm slipping. Hovak wanted a fight, and if necessary, he would give him one. 

Rourke seemed inspired to speak at last. “Yeah, Haddad, and what’s with your little United Nations here? We, like, always considered you basically white. Why fuck that up?” 

Hovak looked mildly pained. “Hey, Rourke, that’s not so cool.” 

Jubilee spoke up before Mike could recover. “Rourke, has it ever occurred to you that Hovak only keeps you around so he can look smart in comparison?” 

A fight was definitely in the air, and Jubilee looked ready to spark their enemies in the gonads. Rayen put a hand on her arm. “Guys, let’s go, it’s not worth it —” 

“Hey, Hovak, Rourke, what up?” It was Paul Greenstein, wandering out of the AV room finishing off his sandwich, crumbs spilling down his front and onto the floor. He had spent the time during the netcast making remarks about Susan Sarandon’s flat chest and other equally charming comments until Mike had almost thrown him out. 

Mike didn’t spare him a look. “Do you think you intimidate me, Hovak?” 

“I think you should remember who you were, Haddad, and decide if you want to be our friend or our enemy.” 

Jubilee snorted, “Heh, with friends like these, Mike…” 

Greenstein crossed the imaginary line between camps and put a chummy hand on Hovak’s shoulder. “Hey, you know that video you were looking for?” 

Hovak went suddenly red. “What? Shut up, Greenstein!” 

“Yeah, I finally found it in a really obscure, really skanky archive. That’s weird shit, man; I felt like I should be wearing rubber gloves. But whatever gets you off.” 

Hovak shoved Greenstein away. “Fucking shut it!” He looked back at Mike and the girls. “Just think about what I said, Haddad. Three words: _Friends of Humanity._ Rourke, let’s go.” 

“What? I wanna fuck them up.” 

“Let’s go!” 

Greenstein called jovially after them. “I’ll get it burned for you for Monday, man! Usual price.” 

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” Jubilee shouted when the two had left. “And is he seriously part of Friends of Humanity?” 

“No, he’s just bullshitting,” Mike said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I used to think he was so cool.” 

“You guys should be careful,” Rayen said. “You’ll get yourself in trouble.” 

Mike watched Greenstein go to the drinking fountain and spit loudly in the bowl. “Paul, what the fuck was that about? What videos?” 

“Nothing. I make up porn DVDs for some of the guys. I’m good at fulfilling special requests for my clients; and let me tell you, Hovak’s requests are _special_!” He licked a spot of ketchup off one of his fingers and sauntered away, down the hall. 

“Shit, Haddad,” Jubilee swore, her cheeks still bright with rage, “Your past is littered with such charming characters.” 

 

*** 

 

It was late Saturday afternoon and the sun was gone, not that it had been seen much at all on this rainy November day. Bobby was floating in a weird waking sleep, sitting on the edge of the work bench with his legs swinging lazily beneath him. It was the end of another detention day with Forge who, when he spoke at all, tended to say things like, “…a regulator with half the capacitance might just _mumble, mumble_ …” Bobby had learned to stop paying attention unless he was given a clear direction. Truth be told, with everything that had happened in the past week, he was finding blank boredom kind of comforting. 

“Blah-di-blah blah,” Forge was saying, “…back from the mission.” 

“Huh?!” Bobby’s head snapped up, and there, on one of the new security monitors, the souped-up Hummer — now known as the X-Van — was coming up the back driveway. Bobby was instantly awake. The X-Men had left the mansion in their yellow and black action outfits right after breakfast, and he and the other students had spent the day speculating on just what they were up to this time. The vehicle, photographed from above by a camera Bobby himself had focused the previous day, was stopped in front of the garage door. 

“Forge!” came Scott’s annoyed voice through a speaker on the wall. Forge answered without looking up from his work. 

“Hey, Cyclops, what can I do for you?” 

“Why won’t the garage door open?” 

“Uh, probably because the security mechanism is in pieces in front of me. The door’s programmed not to open without the correct handshake protocol between the master server and —” 

Jean’s impatient voice cut him off. “So what are we supposed to do?” 

Forge shrugged as if the question was outside his jurisdiction. “I guess park in the front driveway?” 

Bobby watched the car reverse abruptly, scattering angry gravel in its wake. 

“Clients,” Forge muttered with vague exasperation and continued his dissection of a pirated circuit board. 

Bobby jumped off the table and peeked out the door of Forge’s temporary workshop towards the front door, waiting for the teachers to enter. At the other end of the foyer, Doug, Terry, John and Sam appeared at the door to the rec room. Bobby thought they must have seen the X-Van coming around the corner and interrupted their foosball tournament. The fact that John had agreed to such a banal activity had surprised Bobby. 

“What?” John had said at lunch. “I can’t just wait around all day till your ass is available, Drake,” which had made Bobby squirm with embarrassed delight. Not that his ass would have been “available” even if he had been. He wasn’t ready for that particular intimacy just yet. 

He and John locked eyes across the foyer. Bobby raised his eyebrows, as if to say _how’s the tournament?_ and John rolled his eyes meaning _lame, but whatcha gonna do?_ Doug waved at him, and then the front door swung wide and the three X-Men staggered in. They were soaking wet and disheveled, their uniforms worse for wear. 

“Oh my God, Ms. Monroe!” Terry squealed, and the chandelier shook a bit. “Are you okay?!” 

Ororo was leaning heavily against Jean, holding a bloodied bandage to her side. Her cheek was also scratched and bruised, and she was clearly in some pain. Bobby’s heart began to beat faster, images of the melee at the Turcott Clinic flashing through his mind. 

Ororo spoke calmly, though her voice sounded a little shaky. “I’m fine, children. My injuries are not serious.” 

“I bet the other guy looks worse,” Sam said, but the joke sank under the surface of the group’s tension. 

“Okay, guys,” Jean said. “I have to get her down to the med lab right now. We’ll see you at dinner.” 

The two women headed down the corridor towards the elevator, while Bobby crossed to where Scott was standing with the other students. 

“You okay, Scott?” he asked. Somehow, under the circumstances, he couldn’t make himself say “Mr. Summers.” Scott nodded silently. Bobby noticed that his hair-ringed nipple was staring through one of the tears in his top. 

“Are you going to tell us what happened?” Dani asked. 

Scott looked around the group. “I can’t give you details, sorry. But don’t worry. Everything went well. There were some mutants in trouble, and we were able to help them.” 

“Was it the Friends of Humanity?” Sam demanded. 

“Magneto?” Doug asked simultaneously. 

Scott raised his hands. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s not your concern at this point. I’ll tell you one thing, though.” He pulled at the slits in his uniform, and it tore open across his chest with a satisfying _riiippppppp!_ “It’s the last time we wear these damn uniforms!” He laughed, and the others joined in a bit nervously. 

Bobby heard the door of the subbasement elevator open again, and within seconds, a distressed Jean was closing on them with great strides of her long legs. 

“Where the hell,” she demanded in uncharacteristic panic, “is Jones?!” 

Scott’s smile fell off his face. He turned back to the students who looked at each other for a second before they moved out of the door, giving Jean a clear view of her patient. He was slumped peacefully on the couch, still wearing his green pajamas, his eyes glued to the big TV. 

The teachers were at his side in a second, Jean taking his pulse and peering into his eyes while Jones tried to look around her to see the screen. 

“When did you wake up?” Scott demanded, his voice somewhere between relieved and angry. 

“How are you feeling?” Jean asked, professional, bewildered. 

He grunted in annoyance. “Fine. Actually, I’m even better.” 

“Better than what?” Scott asked. 

Jones sighed theatrically and began blinking his eyes. In perfect synchrony, the lights in the room winked on and off. The boy’s tongue slipped between his lips as he concentrated. The music system came on loudly, and he made the TV picture strobe and distort with the beat of the song while the lights in the chandelier went into a “chase” pattern. 

“Hey, Jones!” John yelled over the din. “Turn it down!” 

Jones blinked once more and everything snapped back to normal. A golf tournament was playing on the TV with hushed intensity. “Sorry, John,” he replied with a little smile. 

“Or pick better music,” John replied, returning the smile. 

“But what happened?” Scott asked Jean. 

It was Jones who answered, turning to Scott with calculated innocence. “John switched on the TV for me. Then I felt better.” 

 

*** 

 

“It’s not fair!” 

“Michael, you have gone out with strangers enough this week,” his mother snapped, leaning closer to the mirror in the front hall as she touched up her lipstick. 

“But Xeno already bought the tickets.” 

“You should have asked us first. What kind of concert is it, anyway?” 

“Music,” he replied sullenly. “What kind of concerts are there?” 

“You mean the bang-bang-bang you have been shaking the house with this week? That is not music.” 

“Hardcore is excellent music!” he countered and cursed himself for sounding like a stupid, whiny adolescent. 

His father entered from the next room wearing a suit, eating a meatball pilfered from the fridge. “Who is this Nemo person anyway, Michael? What school does he go to?” Mr. Haddad was a self-styled expert on area schools, with elaborate theories on which institution gave you the best chance at a prosperous future. He swallowed the rest of the meatball and licked at his fingers like a cat, earning a dirty look from his wife as she handed him a tissue from her purse. 

“It’s ‘Xeno,’ and he doesn’t go to school; he’s studying at home with —” 

“This is ridiculous,” his mother waved her hands as if warding off flies. “You meet some drop out, start listening to insane music and cut off half your hair like a lunatic. You cannot go out tonight. Stay home and study for your exams.” She went to the closet and pulled out her new fall coat. 

“Exams aren’t for five weeks, and I did homework all afternoon.” 

“Life is not always about having fun!” 

“She says as she dresses for a party!” 

“Michael, you will show your mother respect. Tonight we are celebrating the 25th wedding anniversary of Dr. Aziz and his wife. He is a fine man and a fine doctor. Someday I dream you will be a man as great as he.” 

“But Dad, I told Xeno I’d go.” 

“And now you will tell him you can’t. This story is over.” 

He sat in the living room in the dark for a long time after they left, fuming. Each dull beat of the antique mantle clock reverberated in his brain like slow, relentless torture. The phone rang, and he banged his leg on the coffee table running to grab it. He swore at the top of his lungs through the next two rings before picking up. 

“Hey, Mike man, I’m just getting ready to leave.” 

“Your mom let you have her car?” 

“Sure. I told her she should get out and party — it’s Saturday night! But she just wants to watch old 80s comedies and be depressed. Oh well, that means we have the vehicle. Anyway, I’ll be there in 20 and we’ll hit the road, okay?” 

“Xeno, I —” 

“What did you think of the protest? Fuck, I wish I had been there. For sure I wish it was me making the music instead of those limp-dick rappers.” 

“I thought the protest was awesome.” 

“Yeah! Stick it to the man! Don’t take his shit! Hey, don’t wear anything that you can’t afford to rip tonight; we’re gonna do some serious moshing. You’ll love it. Hey, Mike, you there? Hello?” 

“Yeah, sorry. Okay. I’ll be waiting outside.” 

“Excellent! FUCK IT UP!!” 

 

*** 

 

“Come on, Jean, admit it. I fucking blew it!” 

“Scott, stop being so hard on yourself. I’m his doctor and I didn’t know. With undocumented mutations, we’re always shooting in the dark.” 

“I just thought… I thought he was being a little shit. A rebel.” He looked out through the window of the office to the examining room where Jones was sitting up in bed, hooked up to monitors and contentedly flipping through channels on the TV monitor in front of him. “So I played the big authoritarian, and we almost lost him.” 

“Hmmph, I’m not convinced he isn’t a bit of a shit sometimes. He likes to play people. But Scott, you’re trying to run a boarding school filled with mutants at the same time as you deal with the demands of leading the X-Men.” 

“Now _you’re_ calling us that dumb name?” 

“I think it’s kind of cute. And Charles secretly likes it, of course.” Scott was seated on a cool, aluminum chair slumped forward in full sulk. He seemed so small and lost that she put an arm around him and kissed the top of his head. She felt the tension leave him as he snuggled in close to her. 

Most of the time, he was her rock, the one steady anchor that allowed her to step into the world with her famous confidence. Before Scott came to the mansion, she had always gone out with geeks who seemed really impressed with themselves for snagging the smart and sexy Jean Grey. Like she was a big game prize. They did whatever she said, but frankly, having all that power bored her to tears. 

Scott, on the other hand, was her little rooster, her personal tough guy, and she was kind of thrilled by the idea that he would fight to defend her in a bar if someone defamed her honor. As if that was all there was to him, as if she couldn’t take care of herself… 

And yet, there were times like this when she valued the fact that he was younger than her — and shorter — when she could wrap him up against her breast and stroke his fine brown hair until he felt better. Part of her was appalled at all this role-playing, but it really seemed to matter sometimes, not least in bed. 

“We didn’t lose him, Scott. And you’re not alone in this. We’ll get through the challenges, and the kids will be okay.” 

He looked up and managed a smile. How she longed to look into his eyes. She had only seen them in photographs of a young, angry man. Blue, they had been; clear and honest as a winter sky. But she could still see his love for her in the tenderness of his smile, and she could feel it roll off him like caramel-colored waves. 

A few minutes after Scott left, John Allerdyce marched cockily into the lab. She noted the contrast between his confident walk and the psychic anxiety he was emanating. 

“Hi, Dr. Grey. I met Summers… I mean Mr. Summers in the hall and he unlocked the elevator for me.” He leaned against a counter, but it took him a couple of tries to make it look casual. “You wanted to see me?” 

“Yes, John. I have your test results. Hold on a minute.” She called up his file on her monitor. “Well, we have very good news here. No infections. No STIs.” 

For just a second, his unguarded joy emerged, and the relief in that smile made him seem younger than usual. “Really?” he exclaimed, and she suddenly understood that he had expected the worst — perhaps habitually expected the worst. “That’s really… really great.” 

He turned away from her, and she watched him reconstruct his mask. She looked over the numbers on the screen. “I don’t know if you were just lucky or if your mutation protects you in some way.” 

“Whatever, it’s good news, right?” 

“Yes, but until I can answer that question, you should always practice safer sex.” 

“Oh yeah, for sure.” 

“And not just your sake. When we’re intimate with someone, John, we have to take responsibility for them.” John furrowed his brow. “Sex is more than just fun. It carries a lot of emotional power, and those emotions can be explosive. You have to remember that you might have more experience than others and —” 

“Hey, no offense, but when it comes to explosive… well, we all walk in that minefield, Doc. Experienced or not, we all take the same chance.” 

“Good point.” 

“But don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.” 

He was perceptive, this one. And unafraid of the truth. She realized how much she liked him. “Thank you, John.” 

“You’ll get my bill in the mail. Hey, how’s Jones there?” 

“Remarkable, actually. My new theory is that he externalizes some of his brain’s functions, such as REM sleep, to the machines in his environment.” 

“You mean he dreams television? Sad.” 

 

*** 

 

Mike was buzzing, high on the sensory overload of his first punk concert as he walked in the front door of his house. It was just after midnight, and Xeno had dropped him off with a promise that this would not be their last excursion into the world of teeming, inked and pierced masses. As predicted, his t-shirt was practically torn to shreds, he had some aching bruises on his side, a cut on his cheek and his ears were buzzing like a squadron of wasps. He felt amazing, truly alive, almost like when he and Jubilee had sex. 

Then he saw his parents sitting in the living room waiting for him. 

It was like an out of body experience; one second he perceived himself as the nexus point where all of history was converging, the next he saw himself through their eyes: battered, alien, disrespectful, out of control. 

The next 15 minutes was an endless, nauseating barrage of guilt, anger and humiliation that made his head swim and the world spin out of focus. 

“You could have been dead! We were worried sick!” 

“Are you taking drugs?! Don’t you know these people take drugs?!” 

“In my day, such disobedience would have had painful consequences!” 

“Why are you throwing away everything we have given you?” 

“Trading your basketball teammates for thugs and tramps!” 

“You don’t care about your parents, your future, yourself!” 

His voice was hoarse from an evening of screaming. “I do care! It’s just music. Xeno’s a good guy! We didn’t take any drugs! I’m still doing well at school!” 

“You are? How do you explain this?” 

His mother held up his history paper, the red C+ looming larger and more humiliating than ever. “I see why you were hiding this.” 

“You went in my bag! You have no right to —” 

“Your mother has every right when she sees that you are lying to us, destroying your own future!” 

“He’s a racist! He gave me that mark because I’m an Arab and I criticized Abraham Lincoln! What kind of education does he think —” 

His mother’s eyes went wide. “Are you crazy, Michael Haddad? You think we can come to this country and attack their heroes? We are not safe here, especially since 9/11! You have to be quiet and try to fit in! When you have graduated from medical school, when you are a respected man like Dr. Aziz… maybe then you can speak your mind. But now? You must think. Think!” 

“Mom! I can’t believe you’re saying that! I’m an American! This is a free country!” 

“And this?!” She pulled out another sheet of paper, and he found himself facing the horned, mutant punk on his poster. The sneering face now seemed full of contempt for his stupidity. “You endanger yourself and your whole family getting involved in this kind of radical politics!” 

His father looked grave. “Michael, do you know any of these… mutants?” 

“Dad, I… I’ve met a couple, yeah, but the point is that their rights are being —” 

His mother slammed the poster face down on the coffee table. “Their _rights_ are no longer your concern! There will be some changes in this house, starting tonight!” 

_Haddadada >So you might as well findd a new bf! I’m a fucking prisoner._   
_Pafs >Ok, we’ll deal._   
_Haddadada >No more dates, no more Spiderhole, no mutant politics,_   
_no more NO FUCK FUCK THEM!!!!!!_   
_Pafs >we’ll see each other at school. Don’t worry. I love u_   
_Haddadada >don’t bother. They’re probably gonna kidnap me back_   
_to Lebanon and arrange a marriage with some 30 yr old hairy hag_   
_from a GOOD FUCKING FAMILY!!!_   
_Pafs >You’ll steal her money and run away with me._   
_Haddadada >I want to die. Mom totally hates you, btw. ur some kind_   
_of drugged up slut with magic power to twist my mind. It’s all ur fault._   
_Pafs >I am pussy power. Fear me. Btw, I like this new angry Mike._   
_He’s hot._   
_Haddadada >fear me_   
_Pafs >So what r u gonna do now?_   
_Haddadada >thinking_   
_Pafs >ok_   
_Haddadada >Can I ask u a favor?_   
_Pafs >I’m already naked. Kidding._   
_Haddadada >U know any mutants or mutant-friendly types on student_   
_councils in the district?_   
_Pafs >A couple. Why?_   
_Haddadada >I just thought it would be a nice gesture if our school_   
_invited mutant students from the whole district to the Xmas dance_   
_Pafs >lol. Ur trouble, Mike Haddad._   
_Haddadada >;-) love u 2 _

 

*** 

 

“Oh fuck, John, you gotta let me cum! I’m gonna die here!” 

John still had his jeans on as he kneeled between naked Bobby’s thrashing thighs. He laughed and ran a nail up the struggling boy’s erection. “Life’s tough, Drake.” 

“What if I have, like a seizure or something?” Bobby moaned, and that earned him another chortle. 

“You practically begged me to get you off, Drake, didn’t you?” 

Bobby nodded weakly. 

“And I said as long as I could make the rules, right?” 

He nodded again and then bit his lip as John ran a hand up his lube-slick shaft, and then rotated his palm on the swollen cock head. 

“But I didn’t think you were gonna, you know, _tie me up!_ ” 

John backed off to consider this. Bobby’s arms were over his head, his wrists tied to the headboard with the belt of his terry-cloth bathrobe. He was further imprisoned by the ball of ice that had been growing around his hands as his excitement grew. 

“Sorry, Bobby. You look fucking incredible like that, and beauty always comes at a price.” 

“John! Please! Get me off! I gotta go running with Scott in ten minutes!” 

“Heh, maybe I’ll leave and let him find you like this! You have a thing for Summers, I know.” 

Bobby whimpered. 

John bent and started licking Bobby’s inner thighs from the knee up to the balls at the same time as he started tapping the boy’s swollen perineum with two fingers. “I frankly can’t get past his personality, but I can see the attraction in those tough little soldier buns.” He kept tapping the taint as he began to jack Bobby with long, agonizing strokes, each ending with a slippery finger across the peehole. “Yeah, I bet he’s a real army sergeant in bed, too. I bet if he said to, you’d give him your little virgin ass, wouldn’t you? Oh yeah, he’d probably still be wearing white sports socks while he pushed his dick into your hole. Very efficient, tilting you to just the right angle for maximum mechanical advantage —” 

“nnnnnggrrraAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!” Bobby’s spunk arced into the air in three distinct blasts across his torso as he arched his back off the bed and twisted like a hooked trout. 

John let go of him and pawed at his own pants, practically tearing the buttons off as he freed his dick. He straddled Bobby, staring wildly at the cum-splattered torso and jacked himself off hard, grunting loudly until he gritted his teeth, swore, and added to the splatter painting on Bobby’s chest. The furthest shot reached Bobby’s face, and the lust-soaked boy stuck out his tongue to take the juice as if catching the first snowflakes of a fresh, new winter. 

Their breathing was loud and shaky as they came down from the orgasmic high. John stroked Bobby’s face and kissed his forehead. He struck a small fireball off his Zippo and used it to gently melt the ice from Bobby’s hands before he untied him. He crossed the room and returned with a towel. Sitting down on the bed, he wiped Bobby down, planting tender kisses as he went. 

Bobby sat up slowly and hugged John. 

John hated to break the mood, but it was only fair to remind his absentminded friend. “Uh, shouldn’t you be downstairs? Your running buddy hates to be kept waiting.” 

Bobby swore and tore around the room, grabbing his running gear. He smelled his armpit. “Oh, God, I should shower before I meet him!” 

“That makes sense: shower before you go running. Will you just leave?” 

Bobby pulled on his clothes as fast as he could and headed for the door. He stopped and turned before he left. “Thanks, John.” 

“Heh, think of me cumming on you if the run gets boring.” 

The door closed and John sighed contentedly, thinking how achingly beautiful Bobby was when he was all debauched and satisfied. He ran a finger across his naked torso, languidly circling his nipples which were always sensitive after he came. He sniffed his own armpit, shrugged and pulled on his shirt. He didn’t share Bobby’s obsession with always smelling like a blend of artificial honeysuckle and ocean spray. 

He dug through the mess on his desk until he found the pages he was looking for and, grabbing the fountain pen that Xavier had given him at their last meeting, headed downstairs to his mentor’s office. They had been meeting twice a week for the three weeks since John had arrived at the mansion, and the sessions were the highlight of John’s academic life. He liked being pushed to excel. He liked being appreciated. 

“I’m not at all sure ‘celebrant’ is the word you’re searching for.” 

“I didn’t know I was searching. What’s wrong with it?” 

“Unless you’re being ironic, it seems to me the man’s ritual is anything but joyous. He is drawn to the altar by guilt, I would say, not by jubilation.” 

“Okay, I see that. Wait, what’s that word…? ‘Penitent’! That works, doesn’t it?” 

“Nicely, John. Do you really think that life’s balance can be restored through that kind of abnegating self-sacrifice?” 

“I don’t know. No! I don’t think so! If you messed up, you have to accept it and try to be less of a jerk in the future. But the damage we leave behind, or the shit someone does to us… well, that’s done and there’s no sense crying about it.” 

“No regrets.” 

“Exactly.” 

“ _Ni le bien q’on m’a fait / Ni le mal / Tout ça me bien égale._ ” 

“Huh? Sorry my French stops at _‘Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir’._ ” 

“That’s too bad. I have a feeling you’d like Rimbaud.” 

“Was that Rimbaud?” 

“Edith Piaf — quite another story.” Xavier smiled mischievously and took a sip of tea. “What ever am I thinking? It would be _highly_ irresponsible of me to point you toward such a savage soul as Rimbaud’s. I shouldn’t even tell you his complete works — with satisfactory translations — can be found in the school library.” 

John grinned back. “Oh. Well, I’ll be sure to avoid it for my own good, then. So, you think the poem works, Professor? I revised it like 40 times.” 

“Yes, I recognize a new level of discipline in it. I’m pleased, John. Read me the last stanza again.” 

“Flayed and hung / Racked and hard / Psalms his mother taught him hot and stinging / On his lips / He opens the door with the borrowed words of God / Inviting the wolves to feast.” 

They sat in silence. Xavier believed in silence, told John that you had to let the thunder of a poem reverberate for a minute. So John breathed in the smell of old books and felt the comfort of the leather chair. _Psalms his mother taught him…_ and suddenly he was somewhere else. He had a clear vision of bath-time in the narrow bathroom of the Syracuse apartment where he and his mother had lived alone for six peaceful years. 

He was a tiny thing, small even for his age, and the steamy room was an exotic oasis at the end of each eventful day. Hot water surrounded him, chill winds blew past his ears from the drafty window, the radiator hissed and banged ineffectually. And through it all, like an amber light illuminating the bathtub’s steam, his mother’s high, fragile voice sang country romances with wistful resignation as John traced the relief patterns on the radiator’s hot surface with a pink, wrinkled finger. _“I’ve got to find you a daddy, little St. John…”_

John didn’t know where Xavier’s mind was traveling (perhaps literally) as they sat there, but he felt that these shared silences meant respect for his work, respect for his worth and the worth of his art. He thought about the long journey he had made to reach this moment in his life, and suddenly he was deeply grateful for Xavier and for Bobby; one, a wise guide in the mysterious lands of poetry, the other a boundless source of optimism and passion. John wondered if Bobby even understood how alive he was, how overflowing with more than just semen. 

And there he was, like a vision, running through the back field on those long legs beside Summers. The glowering clouds and the setting sun which glinted golden on his curls made their exercise seem more heroic, almost mythic. _Would you run to the ends of the Earth for me, Drake?_ he wondered. _Would you descend into Hell to save me? Or am I Orpheus and you’re Eurydice? Heh, only in months without an ‘r.’_

“Hmm,” came Xavier’s voice from deep within the silence, “I sense the urge in you again, John.” 

“Urge? What…?” 

“The urge to write, son. What did you think I meant?” 

 

*** 

 

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Scott announced and the pair accelerated in perfect synchrony. They had stopped running together when school had begun in September. The hiatus was supposed to be temporary, but when Lance left, Bobby had retreated into himself. Then, the horrible night at the Turcott clinic had driven a wedge between teacher and pupil, and the simultaneous meteoric crash of John into his life had made Bobby reluctant to heal the rift. 

But something had changed after Jones’s recovery, and it was a somewhat humbled Scott that had urged a return to their training routine. Bobby had been reluctant at first, but two weeks later, he was enjoying the camaraderie with his summer friend and the physicality of their running relationship. 

“You didn’t go home for Thanksgiving last weekend,” Scott noted. 

Bobby always answered quickly and automatically when a question made him uncomfortable. “Yeah, it wasn’t going to work out, but I’m gonna go skiing with my family at Christmas!” Scott didn’t respond which made Bobby feel the need to say more. “I didn’t want to get behind in my schoolwork. And I led a really important discussion group with some of the kids about our families. And John… uh, I didn’t want him to feel like…” Now that he had started that sentence, he didn’t know how to finish it. “He doesn’t have anyone to go home to, so I figured… I should stay.” 

Their breath was coming faster, and the sound of their footfalls on the moist, black earth seemed suddenly very loud. 

“You’ve been a good support to John since he came to the school, Bobby.” 

“I just want to help him adjust.” 

Scott continued as if Bobby hadn’t spoken. “You have to remember, though. That boy has lived a very different life than you have, and that makes him see the world differently.” 

“I know. Sometimes he says some stuff and I’m, like, _whoa!_ ” 

“I just want you to prepare yourself for the fact that he might not succeed at the school.” 

Bobby’s feet stopped working right. He broke stride and watched Scott pull ahead. He stood frozen in the mud for a few seconds before scrambling after his teacher. 

“Why? Why did you say that? John is working super hard to catch up.” 

“It’s not just about academics, Bobby.” 

“I know he’s not much of an athlete, and he’s a bit frustrated in powers class, but he’s not gonna freak out like —” _Like Lance_ , he was about to say, but there was no reason to bring Lance Alvers into the discussion! John was not that kind of immature showoff. 

“Bobby, I’m not saying he _won’t_ succeed. I just think you shouldn’t get so involved in his outcomes. I see you devoting energy to John at the expense of some of your other friends, like Peter and Neal.” 

Scott had named his favorite students. Bobby wanted to freeze Scott’s feet in a puddle and run in the other direction so he wouldn’t have to hear that certain, censorious voice anymore. But the rhythm of their run seemed to hold him captive. On the other hand, Scott was his friend. He was saying these things for Bobby’s good, wasn’t he? Maybe a guy like John… abused, a runaway, a hustler… maybe he was going to be trouble. _Shit, an hour ago, he had me TIED UP!_ Bobby’s head spun. 

“Have you thought about whether you want to become an X-Man when you turn 18, Bobby?” 

It was like being in a boxing ring; Bobby was struggling to remain on his feet while one blow after another rained down. “I-I thought about it… I mean, I’m thinking. It looks really hard, but, I guess…” he trailed off. Peter and Neal, he knew, had already declared their intentions to join the team. 

“I just want you to know that I have every confidence in you. If you apply yourself, keep your mind on-task, you could really be a great champion for mutantkind.” 

Bobby wanted to throw up. He wanted to be with John, or away from John and just _think_. He didn’t want anyone’s expectation, he didn’t want anyone else demanding his loyalty. 

“Thanks, Scott. That’s really… uh, thanks,” he said. 

“Let’s pick up the pace again.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs quoted in the first section are, in order, "Conformity" by Global Threat, “Rotten Future” by Anti-Flag and “I Want to Conquer the World” by Bad Religion.


	20. Friends Like These, Part 2

Q.8. How many people know you are a mutant? 

__ Nobody knows   
__ 1–5 people   
__ 6–25 people   
__ More than 25 people   
__ I don’t know how many 

Q. 9. Have you faced anti-mutant discrimination, i.e., discrimination that has targeted you directly? (answer all that apply) 

__ Yes, by members of my family   
__ Yes, by peers   
__ Yes, by school administration   
__ Yes, by other authority (e.g., police, government agencies, institutions)   
__ Yes, random acts of discrimination by strangers   
__ No, I have not faced discrimination due to my mutant status 

It was just before lunch at the School for Gifted Youngsters, and Andi Murakami was seated in Professor Xavier’s office, watching him stare at his monitor, scrolling through the questionnaire she had spent half the night perfecting. He looked up for a moment as a deep rumbling shook the building, followed by a shriek like a jet engine. The old leaded windows rattled as the boy from Kentucky (Sam? Was that his name?) flew past like a comet, doing laps around the school. Xavier returned to the questionnaire again, a frown deepening the creases of his face. Thinking about Sam? About her work? 

She hated drafting questionnaires; she would constantly second-guess herself, trying to visualize how unnamed respondents would answer. She imagined each one as a judge, throwing back accusations: “I can’t answer this! It’s clearly biased!” Months of data collection rendered instantly useless. 

“Good, yes,” The Professor murmured after a few minutes. He looked up and smiled. “Well done, Andi. I think it’s thorough and covers all the areas we discussed.” 

She blinked and stared at him blankly before she remembered to say “Thank you.” She flipped through the printout in her lap. “You don’t think I’m making a lot of trouble for myself with the open-ends in question 15?” 

“Oh, you will definitely have to make some categorization decisions and do a number of roll-ups, but that is part of the researcher’s job. When will you begin interviewing our students?” 

“Soon! Today even, if you think it’s good to go.” She bit her lip. “It’s just…” 

“What’s the matter, my dear?” 

“The sample size! I need more than your twelve — and more than I get at the youth group meetings.” She tapped her fingers in frustration. “I have to reach mutants across America if I want it to paint a true picture of their lives.” She felt the cord of passion inside her, and worried that maybe she wasn’t objective enough to be a researcher. She was always somewhat intimidated by her fellow students who seemed so clinically detached from their work. Maybe that was the mark of a true scientist. Maybe if you were too involved, you wouldn’t be able to make objective conclusions. 

_No! That’s bullshit_ , she told herself. How could you be less than passionate and be a good researcher? Right from the start, with her undergraduate work on children of divorce, she had followed her heart, and she wasn’t about to stop now. 

“This isn’t just about my PhD, Professor. A qualitative study is going to be of no use politically, even if the anecdotes are powerful. We need statistically significant, verifiable numbers to show how mutant youth are hurting.” 

“You’re putting too much pressure on yourself, Andi. This is a new area and any contribution will be valuable.” 

“No!” she said, raising her voice. Her eyes went wide with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I just — I want this research to help the kids. I want some ammunition to stop bigots like Senator Kelly. If we have some solid figures on our side, maybe we can stop his Mutant Registration Act nonsense!” 

Xavier smiled, and she could feel his pride in her. It was like being bathed in warm sunlight. Of course, she knew she was saying exactly what he wanted to hear, but that didn’t make his approval any less sweet. 

“Then, Andi, we’ll just have to find a way for you to reach more mutants. Have you considered…” He paused and looked up at nothing. “Excuse me a moment. Come in!” Andi took a moment to realize that Charles was responding to a telepathic call rather than an actual knock. The door opened, and Doug Ramsey was standing there shyly, hand on the doorknob. Andi smiled at him and was surprised to see him blush and look quickly back to Xavier. 

“Professor, Neal and I were wondering which questions we were supposed to answer on the physics handout.” 

From the hall came a voice with an Indian accent that Andi assumed must belong to Neal. “ _I’m_ not confused. We have been assigned only problems one through three. If you would read your —” 

“ _Arré, Neal!_ ” Doug said, his voice rising an octave. “ _Chelo!_ _Chelo!_ Um, is that right? Or are we supposed to do all the problems?” 

“Neal is correct, Douglas. Just one through three this week. Feel free to work ahead if you wish.” 

“Okay, thanks.” The boy continued to stand in the doorway nervously. 

Xavier raised an eyebrow. “Is there anything else?” 

Doug suddenly lurched forward and turned to Andi, speaking quickly in Japanese, “ _Ms. Murakami, I heard about your distinguished research efforts to investigate the lives of mutant youth, and I wanted to say I would be honored to assist you in any way possible, if my assistance would be… um, useful.”_ He nodded his head in a brief, formal bow. 

Andi sat up straight in surprise and bowed back. In Japanese less fluent than his, she responded, “ _Thank you, um,_ Doug. _I have no need of help in giving the interviews, but perhaps with the…_ ” She realized didn’t know the vocabulary of statistics in Japanese and switched to English. “…with the data-entry and tabulations.” 

Doug was sort of locked in the last of his bow, staring at her feet. “ _I learned Japanese yesterday to make you feel more comfortable._ ” He looked up cautiously and the room shook again as Sam came around for another lap. 

Andi was suddenly overcome by the bizarreness of life at the mansion; she felt almost giddy _. In such a place anything could happen. I could even be a real researcher!_ She smiled in a way she hoped was comforting and not too condescending. “That’s very sweet, Doug, but actually I only speak Japanese when I go home to visit my parents.” 

Doug blushed and said nothing. The silence pooled thickly around them until the Professor came to Andi’s rescue. “Thank you, Mr. Ramsey. I’m sure Ms. Murakami appreciates the offer and will let you know when you can be of assistance. Now, if you will excuse us, we must resume our meeting.” Doug nodded and all but ran from the room, slamming the door behind him. “Oh dear, Andi. I’m afraid someone has a little crush on you.” 

Andi straightened her jacket to cover her embarrassment. “Yeah, I got that. I’ve never had anyone learn a language for me.” 

“Yes, well, If I recall correctly, Douglas has known Japanese for at least a year; but we’ll forgive him his little lie.” Xavier squinted at her mischievously. “We poor men do what we must in the name of love.” 

 

***

 

“Do I understand you correctly, Ms. Sweeney?” Principal Matthews said with barely suppressed rage. “Are you suggesting that we actively encourage mutants to attend our Christmas dance? Mutants from God knows where?!” 

Mike wanted to shout in triumph, cackle, guffaw as Matthews faced off against the District Diversity Officer, but he knew that he had to keep his cool, not make this a pissing match. So he kept his head down and drew omega signs in ballpoint on the thighs of his jeans while the suits battled it out. 

They were cozily ensconced in Matthews’s office like a dysfunctional family in therapy: Mike, Catherine Sweeney, the Principal, and Jubilee, who had pulled her chair back into the corner as if to say, “I’m not really part of this.” But she was here, Mike noted gratefully, and that was a long way from sparking his ass for even getting involved in mutant rights battles. Her fear of exposure was fading, either due to the excitement of the battle or the heat of their love. Maybe they were the same thing. 

Ms. Sweeney was brilliant. She could be diplomatic while simultaneously asserting herself in the face of old-school thinking like the Principal’s. “Any mutant who attended — and I believe the number would be small — would be a registered high school student in the district, Mr. Matthews. I think it would be best if we simply saw it as a gesture of support and inclusion.” 

“Including trouble is not high on my list of priorities.” 

Mike couldn’t keep his head down for that one. “Mutants aren’t trouble, sir.” 

“Is that so, Michael? Tell it to Christian Turcott, or to those grade eight students in Wyoming. A few hours playing with their little radioactive friend, and now they’re all in hospital.” 

Mike looked over at Jubilee and her eyes were flashing dangerously. He responded more angrily than he had meant to. “As soon as the authorities figured out what was happening, they removed the kid right away. He didn’t mean to do it. And now he’s locked up like a criminal and being denied due process under the law. What kind of —” 

Ms. Sweeney raised a hand and he shut himself up. “If we’re going to bring up individual cases, Mr. Matthews, then you should know that the district is taking the suicide of Lisa Bukowski very seriously. The kind of bullying she received over her suspected mutant status was deplorable. A huge failure for us all. This dance will be exactly the right kind of gesture, and I am empowered by the Commissioner to insist on it. I hope you will see the wisdom and compassion of being on side with this decision.” 

Matthews was silent, staring at the woman as if he might leap across his desk and strangle her. “And is the Commissioner going to pay for the additional security we’ll have to hire?” 

The woman’s tone changed, as if to imply that they were all on the same page now and simply ironing out the pesky details. “If we make the school into an armed camp, it will send the wrong message. We think a few discreet security personnel will be sufficient… just to make sure that outside troublemakers don’t spoil anyone’s fun.” 

Mike dropped his head again, this time to hide his grin. _You rock, Ms. Sweeney!_

“Fine,” Matthews answered her, but it was at Mike he staring. “We’ll go ahead. But if there’s any trouble, I’m shutting down the dance and sending everyone home. If you’re friends with any of these mutants, Mr. Haddad, I suggest you tell them to be on their best behavior.” 

Both Sweeney and Matthews, with different motivations, told Mike and his X-gene Dance Committee (a small group of mutants and their supporters from different schools) not to over-hype the event. Ms. Sweeney said to think of it as a first step in the road to inclusion. But the kids were too buoyed by their success to keep it quiet. A first round of posters had gone up within two days of the announcement, and the dance committee was replacing them as fast as they could be defaced or torn down. 

One member of the committee worked for her school paper and interviewed Mike. When the edition came out, he was taken aback to find his words the lead in the article, and to find himself described as a punk activist and the leader of this “revolutionary action for the rights of the oppressed.” 

“I’m so glad my parents are out of town, Jubes. Can you imagine if they heard about this?” 

They were working on a new poster (part two of their three-pronged publicity attack) in the school’s media room. 

“It’s just a school paper; you’re safe,” she replied. “Hey, if they’re out of town, why are we doing this here instead of your place? I mean, not only do you have a good computer, but we could have some seriously excellent — and did I mention naked? — study breaks.” 

“No way! My parents asked our housekeeper, Angelica to stay at the house while they’re away. She had to swear to report anything I do that I’m not supposed to. And that most definitely includes having you in my bedroom. Naked or otherwise.” 

“Shit. Well at least it was good on the phone last night.” 

Mike felt his face grow hot. “It was so wild… you know, hearing you.” 

“Did you shout into your pillow when you did it? That’s what it sounded like.” 

He blushed red. “Yeah, it was pretty dumb, huh? Maybe we shouldn’t do that anymore.” He suddenly looked around and lowered his voice. “Do you think we could, like, do something here?” 

“Uh, no. Come on, Mike! If Matthews caught us, he’d have us suspended, _and_ he’d find a way to close down the dance committee!” 

“Shit, I know, you’re right. Listen, I know I said it’s dumb, but can we… uh, can we maybe do the phone thing again tonight anyway?” 

“It’s a date,” she said and blew a strand of hair off her face. “You know how I feel whenever we do this?” 

“Do what?” 

She waved at the monitor. “This! The mutant rights stuff.” 

“How do you feel?” 

“Like you’re doing it for me. Because you love me. I know, I know, it’s not just for me. It’s Xeno and Rayen and all those kids in the news and everything, but I was your first mutant.” 

Mike felt a stab a guilt. “Uh, actually… Listen, I never told you because I thought I should ask permission first —” 

“What?! You knew another mutant?” She was staring daggers at him. “Who was she?” 

“No! Not like that! Okay. Under the circumstances, I don’t think he’d mind if I told you. Did you hear about my friend Bobby Drake?” 

“Oh yeah! The gay kid who left to go to that private school.” 

“Yeah, well it’s not just an ordinary private school. It’s… Wait, what did you say? Bobby’s not _gay_!” 

“Oh, sorry. Just something I heard from Rayen. Like, she got that impression.” 

“Well, he’s not! What’s with you? Lincoln and now Bobby?” But what if he was? It suddenly seemed to Mike like something he had been looking at and not seeing. _What about when Bobby stayed at the house last spring? Did he think we were going to… do something? Did he see me NAKED?!_

Jubilee seemed taken aback by his response. She stroked his arm and said, “Sorry, right… at this school… They know he’s a mutant? It’s cool with them?” 

Suddenly Mike didn’t want to talk about it. “Yeah, yeah. It sounds like a cool place. Hey, it’s late. We have to finish the poster before the committee meeting.” 

 

*** 

 

“Where’s your roommate?” Terry wanted to know, standing in the door of the room. 

Bobby’s mind was slow to pull away from the calculus problem that had him in its teeth. Absurdly, he looked towards John’s bed as if her question could be answered that easily. That’s when he realized he hadn’t seen John since two o’clock, when their history class had let out. Now, it was almost dinner. 

“Uh, I dunno. Sometimes he goes for big walks when he wants to be alone. Why do you want him?” 

“Because of his poem, dummy. Why do you think?” 

“What poem?” 

“Haven’t you checked email?” 

Bobby quickly logged into the mansion webmail and scrutinized the “froms” and “subjects”: 

_– Reminder: No further extensions on physics problem set_

_– Missing cell phone. Great sentimental value, guys._

_– Dude! I need your biology notes from Tuesday!!!!!_

_– Reminder: interviews tomorrow with Andi Murakami_

_– Read This or Whatever..._

That was it! An email from John addressed to the complete student and staff mailing list: 

_I wrote this poem and maybe you’ll like it. Don’t bother if poetry doesn’t float_   
_your boat. It’s not like I care or anything. But if you want to and you have_   
_nothing better to do, it’s pretty good, I think._

The attached poem was one John had been working on for a week. He’d even tried out lines on Bobby which, frankly, was an act of desperation at best. 

The day before, John had come to dinner after his private class with the Professor practically bouncing with excitement, telling Bobby that he finally wrote a good one. What was amazing was the act of bravado of sending it out like this. While it was true that John was now an accepted resident of the mansion, he still kept his cards close to his chest and really had only three or four people he considered friends. Of those, only Bobby saw the full range of his passionate friend’s emotions, a responsibility he wasn’t altogether comfortable with. 

“I can’t believe he sent it _everyone_ ,” Bobby said, re-reading the poem which, as usual, confused him as much as it impressed him. 

Terry came in and sat on the bed. “I know! He once read me one of his poems. I didn’t get something and he started swearing.” 

“Just because you didn’t get it?” 

“He wasn’t swearing at me. He was going, ‘Shit, fuck, never mind, it’s no good, I shouldn’t have shown you!’” They both laughed at her John impression, hands stuffed in pockets, shoulders hunched up, eyes set to kill. 

“And now he goes completely public. No wonder he’s hiding somewhere.” 

“I think it’s so beautiful. Did you see the part about climbing the mountain? Wait…” She got up to look over Bobby’s shoulder at the screen. “ _He is his own burning bush / Carving commandments on his chest with / A blunt flint sharpened / On loss and lust._ ” She sighed. “Wow, he has so many secrets.” 

The part about lust worried Bobby. He wondered how it might implicate him, but he nodded meaningfully anyway. “What does everyone think of the poem?” 

“Kitty and Pete both say he’s a genius. Neal is totally pissed. Heh, big surprise.” 

“Why is he pissed? What’s his fucking problem with John?” 

“He says he knows John’s ‘type.’ His dad was, like, the Chief of Police in Calcutta, and he thinks John is part of a ‘criminal class’ and can never be ‘truly redeemed’.” 

The words rolled through Bobby’s head like storm surge. “You don’t think it’s true, do you?” he asked hesitantly. 

Terry’s eyes went wide. “Bobby! How can you even _say_ that? John is our friend. I don’t know what he went through before he got here, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not a criminal!” She got up and moved to the door, turning back to look at him quizzically. “You’re so weird sometimes.” 

John was the topic of much discussion at dinner, especially since he appeared to have vanished off the face of the Earth. Bobby got himself in trouble, claiming to be privy to John’s creative process, even hinting that he had made a few small suggestions on the way to the final masterpiece. But when Pete asked some pointed questions about the imagery, Bobby murmured something inaudible and backed off in embarrassment, making no further contributions to the conversation. 

Bobby was growing worried; it wasn’t like John to miss a meal. Despite his rail-thin body, he had a voracious appetite, especially on days when he used his powers a lot. It was with trepidation that Bobby approached the teachers’ table just after announcements. 

“Mr. Summers, John’s been gone for about five hours. You don’t think…” Bobby actually felt a twinge of panic as he framed the question. “You don’t think he, uh, ran away, do you?” 

Scott’s jaw jutted forward tensely and he paused for a few seconds before turning to Xavier. “Professor?” 

Xavier’s eyes grew unfocused. “No, John’s on the school grounds. He’s conscious and unhurt.” 

“Should someone go and collect him?” Ororo asked. 

The Professor put a hand on hers. “No, no. I think he’s just feeling a little exposed now. He’ll come in when he’s ready.” 

“As long as that’s before curfew,” Scott said. “He put himself in the spotlight; he should deal responsibly with the consequences.” 

Bobby knitted his brow and looked back to Xavier who smiled kindly and said, “Don’t worry, Robert. St. John has faced bigger challenges than the squirrels in the spruce grove.” 

Tempted as he was to go looking for the wayward poet, Bobby decided it was better to let him return in his own time. Also, he was worried what would happen if John came in after curfew now that Bobby had stupidly gone and exposed him to the staff. Well, to Scott in particular who already seemed to have it in for John. He told himself not to worry. It wasn’t like anything terrible would happen to the guy out there. He was tough and smart. Bobby realized that what had really scared him was the possibility that John had left. Had left him without saying goodbye, like he didn’t matter or anything. Like they weren’t best friends. 

It was nearly 11:00 — almost an hour after dorm curfew — when John appeared, standing in the door of their room as if he needed permission to enter. 

Bobby jumped up and ran to him. “Hey! I was getting, uh, worried.” He kind of danced around John, looking for an angle into a possible hug, but he couldn’t seem to make it work. 

John pushed past him and headed for his bed. “Shit, Bobby, I just went for a fucking walk.” 

“Yeah, I figured. I just…” He followed John to the bed and snuck in a quick kiss to the top of his somewhat greasy head. “I’m just glad you’re back. You must be starving… or did you kill and roast a bear?” 

“Ha fucking ha. No, I’m dying. You got any chips or anything?” 

“Come on, we can do better than that.” 

Bobby snuck them down the back staircase where a hundred years earlier, the Xaviers’ servants had scuttled with trays of tea and buckets of hot water. The kitchen was far enough from the offices that you could usually get away with a night-time raid even if Scott or Jean were burning the midnight oil. There, he sat the bemused John down and made a big show of preparing a Bobby Special — a sandwich which contained a layer of every leftover in the fridge. 

John dug in hungrily while Bobby treated himself to a big bowl of caramel ripple ice cream. 

John made a frankly sexual moan of satisfaction as he finished off his late dinner. “So,” he asked. “Did I make a total fool of myself?” 

“No way! Everyone thought it was really cool, especially after Pete declared it a masterpiece.” 

“Goddamn,” John said. “Why does everyone always need a critic to tell them if they like something or not?” 

“Why did you do it? You never show people your stuff. Most of them didn’t know you even wrote poems.” 

“I show people. I showed you. I gave you a poem the first day I met you.” 

Bobby felt a little thrill. “Yeah, you did. But I thought you didn’t need anyone’s approval; you’re big, independent John Allerdyce.” 

“I’m a writer. I need an audience.” He sprang up from his chair and started pacing the tile floor. “I wasn’t planning it or anything. I just… After last period, I was sending a final draft to the Professor; it was my homework for him. Anyway, I started typing ‘Xavier’ into the address field, and the full ‘Xavier-Academy’ list popped up.” He stopped pacing, wiping a spot of mustard off his pouty lower lip. Bobby had, in fact, been fighting the urge for the last minute to lick it off. “I don’t know… I just thought, ‘Do it!’ So I wrote that lame message and —” 

“And you hit ‘send.’ Wow.” Bobby got up and pulled John into his arms. John yielded to the show of affection, arching his back and pressing his crotch forward against Bobby’s. 

“I know: ‘wow.’ And then I totally panicked and took off. I’ve been wandering around the woods wearing out flints since then. What does that make me: idiot or wimp?” 

“You’re brave. Manly.” He bent forward and brought their lips together. The gentle, exploratory phase of the kiss was quickly abandoned in favor of a war of tongues and roaming hands, their conjoined crotches suddenly meatier than before. 

John pulled back and looked at Bobby hungrily. “You know what I wish? I wish there was a mailing list for the whole fucking world and I just fucking hit SEND TO ALL!” 

Bobby felt a thrill, like he was suddenly part of something big. “Yeah? You want that? Everyone reading the works of St. John Allerdyce?” 

John’s eyes were ablaze. “Yeah! Everyone! All the fuckers at the base of the mountain, waiting for me to bring down the WORD!” 

A strange, familiar voice spoke out of the darkness of the hall. “I bet that’s possible.” 

Bobby and John swung around, and there was Jones standing in the door of the kitchen. They jumped apart and Bobby found himself manically straightening his sweater, running his fingers through his mussed curls. 

“Hey, kid,” John said, either calmly or with the pretense of calm — Bobby couldn’t tell. “Why are you ghosting around at this time of night?” 

“I don’t have curfew anymore. I don’t need sleep.” 

“How…” Bobby had to control a stutter. “How long have you been standing there?” 

Jones’s eyes seemed far away. “Yeah, there must be a network out there… Can you see it? A database of everyone and everything. They could all get John’s poem or _anything_ _we wanted_.” He turned and walked away down the hall still talking to himself. “Yeah, the ultimate network…” 

John and Bobby stared at each other, saying nothing for a long minute. 

 

*** 

 

_“No, I’m not a mutant but sometimes I wish I was.”_

_“Michael,” the reporter asked. “Do you find a lot of anti-mutant prejudice among your fellow students?”_

_“Not really. I mean, kids call each other ‘mutie’ and make dumb jokes, but if you really present the issues to them, they see that it makes no sense to discriminate. The real problem comes from hate-mongers like Friends of Humanity, or from opportunistic politicians like Senator Kelly. They’re just trying to boost their own power by attacking a new minority.”_

_“And what do you hope your dance will accomplishment in the larger fight for mutant rights?”_

_“Hey, I just want all the students to have a really great party! Everyone is going to be totally sick of exams by then. Mutant or no.”_

_“So, despite the concerns of parents, and amid bitter infighting at the District school board, this dance is going ahead, thanks in no small part to the drive of one committed student. This is Adrienne Durost, WBNC News.”_

 

“Ororo, please stop watching videos; we need to get down to business,” Scott said. He often felt like a bag of marbles had been emptied into his life. His job was to retrieve them or, at least, keep them from tripping anyone up. 

The school staff along with Forge, the “Maker” were seated around a large board table. In front of each chair was an individual video monitor. Jean and the Professor were deeply embroiled in a debate about her research, while from Ororo’s station the quiet but insistent voice of broadcast news could be heard. 

“Sorry, Scott. I check for mutant-related news every day on this YouTube channel, and there hasn’t been a second to do so until now. There’s a high school student in Boston who’s fighting to get mutants included at the school’s Christmas dance. What a brave young man!” 

“That’s good to know, but we have a lot to get through and I need 100 percent of your attention.” 

“I think you’ll find 70 percent more than adequate,” she replied as she muted her workstation, extracted an earpiece from its housing and resumed her viewing. 

Scott bit back a response that would have escalated the tension. His relationship with Ororo had lately developed something of a competitive edge. _Sometimes,_ he reflected, _you need to let the marbles roll a bit_. “Hank? Can you hear okay?” 

Hank McCoy’s video image was being beamed through from Washington in a small window on their displays. “You are coming through crisply, clearly and impatiently, Scott.” 

“All right, I propose that we put off the budget discussion until next meeting when we’ll have the final figures on the hangar construction.” 

“Can we talk about the new uniforms?” Jean asked, looking around the room for support. “I like the red design better than the black.” 

“It’s actually more of a _cayenne_ ,” Hank corrected. “It doesn’t exactly scream subtlety, Jean.” 

She shook her head. “Look, we’re going to be noticed using powers; we might as well be bold about it. ‘They’re cayenne, they’re your friends, they’re the X-Men!’” 

Without looking up from her screen, Ororo added, “I still think we should each wear whatever makes us comfortable. We’re individuals.” 

“Who are part of a team!” Jean insisted. 

Scott wondered why they could never follow a simple agenda. Why did he even bother drafting them and mailing them out? “I think the black design is by far the most practical,” he said. “It gives us stealth advantage, and the material is a lot tougher than our… _costumes_ were. But this discussion is supposed to happen next week. I’d like to get back on schedule and talk about The Blackbird. Forge?” 

“Should be ready for launch in a week. Would it be possible for me to have a couple of students to help?” 

Jean looked around the table. “What do we think? Is it time to tell the students about our new toy?” 

“We might as well tell them during announcements after dinner,” Xavier said. “I’m frankly relieved by our new policy of openness.” 

Scott saw that Ororo was absorbed in her news feed, and a sudden teacherly impulse made him try and catch her in a moment of inattention. “Storm? What do you think?” 

She didn’t raise her head, but spoke up without hesitation. “Certainly, although we’ll have to create protocols about clearing the basketball court when we need to launch in an emergency.” 

Scott found himself smiling wryly. Truth be told, he was enjoying this competition. “See something interesting? Anything you want to share?” 

“Mutant Registration Act. Senator Kelly is gathering support with surprising speed.” Scott was caught off-guard by the gravity of the report, and a wave of anger moved through him. Looking around the table, he saw that the news had an equally jarring effect on his colleagues. 

Xavier spoke up first. “Hank, we all saw the official reply from the Department of Mutant Affairs when Kelly first made his proposal. Your words of censure seem to be falling on deaf ears. Are you planning any more aggressive responses?” 

“It’s a delicate situation, Charles. The Director feels that we have to guard against becoming shrill in tone. That means a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, a process I find almost unbearable.” 

Ororo smiled. “You’re more the bare-knuckle type, aren’t you Hank?” 

“And bare-foot, my dear.” 

“The agenda, people!” Scott said and the room sighed. “Forge, you can continue to use Bobby and Kitty. Roberto’s into airplanes. He’d enjoy the work, too.” He looked at a calendar display. “We only have you for a few more weeks; will you get through all the projects?” 

“Security system is up. Danger Room is almost online as soon as I can finish calibrating the projectors.” 

Jean spoke up. “And what about the communications manual?” 

“On it.” 

“The retinal scanner on the weapons locker misreads half the time,” Ororo complained. 

“Building a replacement.” 

“And perhaps you could help me with some fine-tuning on Cerebro,” Charles said. “I am still unable to get a fix on Magneto and his people. It’s most frustrating.” 

“Oh, that’s because they’re masked,” Forge replied casually. 

The room skipped a beat. Xavier broke the tense silence. “That is what we surmised… How is it you are so certain?” 

The maker responded with his usual candor. “’Cause I built the psi-masking tech for him.” 

Scott quelled the impulse to reach over, grab Forge by the collar and slam him into the table. “Are you saying that you are providing a terrorist with strategic weaponry?” 

Jean looked wounded. “Why, Forge? Why would you help him?” 

“He asked me; same as you.” 

There was a growl under Hank’s words: “Magneto is _not_ the same as us.” 

“He’s a murderer,” Ororo said, raising her voice. “If you had seen what he did to Christian Turcott —” 

“Please, Hank, Ororo,” Charles said, raising a calming hand. “Forge, everything we at the Institute believe runs contrary to Erik Lehnsherr’s doctrine of violent confrontation. I do not understand why you can’t see that.” 

“Look, Charles, I know all about you and Magneto, and I know you don’t see eye-to-eye. I like you guys; you’re doing great stuff here and helping mutant kids; but Magneto’s out to help mutants, too. And frankly, I can’t say who’s doing it right and who’s doing it wrong.” 

For Scott, there was no question of how to respond to the situation. “Professor, under the circumstances, I don’t see how we can trust Forge under our roof.” 

Forge stood quickly. Hurt and anger colored his words. “Fine, I’ll just pack my bags and go. You can finish the work yourselves.” 

“Wait, please,” Xavier said. “Forge, I won’t pretend this news isn’t shocking, but I understand what you are saying. I assume you will not share the secret of the psi-masking technology with us, correct?” 

“Nope, and I won’t tell Magneto how anything works here at the mansion, either.” 

Scott couldn’t look at the mutant engineer. He could only stare at Charles in silent disbelief as his mentor sighed and responded. “Then please, finish the work you have begun here. We are grateful for your contributions and we have faith in your integrity. Scott, is there anything else we need to say to Forge at this meeting?” 

“I have nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.” 

The dig seemed to roll off Forge who smiled again. “Great, then I’ll get back to the hangar. Later, guys.” He left the room. 

Scott clamped his arms across his chest and dug his fingers deep into his biceps. His jaw was tight enough to crush hazelnuts. 

“Scott,” Xavier began carefully. “I don’t see as we had a choice. If Forge were to leave now —” 

“So instead we get to live with a major security breach for the foreseeable future. Great.” 

Jean tried to console him. “I’m sure we can trust Forge’s integrity. I didn’t sense any deceit in him. He’s just not political.” 

“Political!” Scott spat with a cold laugh. “Our fundamental beliefs are just politics now?” 

“Everything is politics, Scott,” Hank offered sadly. 

“Uh-oh,” Ororo said, her eyes flickering with the reflected light from her video screen. 

“What now?!” Scott almost shouted. 

She looked up at them, pulling the earpiece free. “Where is John Allerdyce?” 

John and Jones made an odd pair as they sat staring up at him, still sweating from the workout they had been called out of. John’s face was set in a careful mask of boredom and disdain; Jones was looking around at the office curiously as if nothing could possibly be wrong. Scott sat behind the desk in Xavier’s office, trying to bring the full weight of his intimidating, hidden glare down on them. The Professor sat watchfully behind Scott. 

“What’s the big mystery, Mr. Summers?” John said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. 

“Actually, John, I was wondering if the two of you had something to tell me.” 

John rearranged his face into a show of annoyed confusion. “Like what?” 

Scott could tell this wasn’t his first trip to a principal’s office. He turned to the younger boy. “Jones, what about you?” 

An antique barometer on the wall had caught Jones’s attention and he was staring at it with his mouth open. “No,” he said without turning. 

“Why don’t you take a look at this, then,” Scott said and turned his computer monitor around to face them. A news report began onscreen, showing the hacking of a giant video display over Times Square. On it, the scrolling headlines and cola ads had been replaced by John’s new poem, thirty feet tall, its lines beaming down on the tourists and touts of the most famous corner in the world: 

_He is naked of all_   
_But the thinnest skin of pride_   
_And his knees bleed from wasted hours_   
_Bent in the sordid luxury of prayer_

Scott watched the boys’ reactions. Jones showed no more interest than if it were footage of pigeons pecking in the gutter. John, on the other hand, looked six steps beyond amazed. “Holy shit,” he breathed and, when he saw his own name scroll into view, “Holy SHIT! How long was it up there? How many people saw…?” 

He turned to the Professor, panic slowly building on his face, but Scott pulled the attention back his way. “Technicians at the network are speculating that the sabotage might have been perpetrated by a mutant. Any thoughts on that theory?” 

John lost his cool altogether. “I-I don’t know. I have no clue how… I didn’t know anything about it! Honestly!” 

Jones looked peeved. “That’s dumb! You can hack a network without being a mutant!” 

“But it might be easier for someone, say, with your powers.” 

Jones nodded. “Oh yeah, for sure.” He looked at Scott without fear or challenge as if they were merely discussing a point of academic interest. Scott began tapping the desk with aggressive fingertips. 

“I think you both understand how serious this is. Someone has given the government reason to come looking for us, or to go after other mutants. And John’s name is attached to it, large as life.” 

John began chewing a fingernail. “This is bad. I’m a fucking runaway! My mom… She’ll call the police and tell them!” He turned to Xavier. “Please, you won’t turn me in, right? I didn’t fucking do this!” 

The Professor spoke for the first time. “Please watch your language, John. We’re not turning anyone in, I promise.” 

Scott jumped in. “But if we find out either of you had anything to do with this…” he let the words hang. In point of fact, he had no idea how to finish the sentence and hoped the implied threat would do some good. After a few more tense seconds, he dismissed the boys, and John all but dragged Jones out of the room. When they’d left, Scott turned to Xavier. “Well? Did they do it?” 

“It came as a complete surprise to St. John.” 

“That’s what I thought. But what about Jones? Did you get anything off him?” 

“I can’t read his mind, Scott.” 

“Oh, come on, Charles! I understand your ethical convictions, but in a case like this —” 

“No,” Xavier replied with evident frustration. “I’ve tried! I mean I _cannot_ read the boy! I can penetrate his mind with no difficulty, of course… _but his thoughts!_ They aren’t shaped like any I’ve ever encountered. I can make no sense of them. It would be like you receiving his signed confession in Swahili. I’m afraid I have no way of knowing if he was responsible or not. We can only hope that we impressed upon him the danger in which he has put John and the rest of us.” 

“If it was him.” 

“As you say.” 

“We’re getting in deeper, Charles. We’re harboring a runaway and hiding him from the authorities.” 

“Not to mention providing sanctuary to Fred Dukes who was undoubtedly identified on surveillance cameras at the Turcott Clinic and is now a wanted criminal. And I’m afraid it’s not going to end there. If more mutant children come to us as refugees —” 

Scott sighed. “Then we’ll have to help them. It’s funny. After I left the streets and came to live with you, I swore my days on the wrong side of the law were behind me.” 

“Sometimes the law slips away from us, Scott, like a receding tide. And before we know it, we’re standing high and dry on the shores of circumstance, wondering how we got there.” 

Scott felt a headache building and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Charles, no offense — it’s a swell metaphor and all — but give it a rest, okay? This day has been literary enough.” 

 

***

 

Mike had never meant to be in the spotlight, but he kept finding himself there. First at the SpiderHole, and now as the de facto head of the dance committee, a position he had never sought. He had been on his way into school one morning late in November when the camera crew cornered him. He had recognized the reporter from the local news, but before he could figure out what was happening, he was being interviewed, the camera’s insectoid eye staring him down with dumb hunger. 

His protests had met only with unctuous promises of brevity, but soon he had found himself speaking with a fluency that surprised him about the importance of including mutant members of the student body, of the suicide of the bullied girl, of being an example for all of America. He was asked about his own mutant status and had heard himself say: “No, I’m not a mutant but sometimes I wish I was.” 

“You were awesome,” Jubilee told him on the phone that night after she saw the broadcast. “You looked so calm and serious.” 

“Really? I was a nervous wreck. I still am. I had to concoct a lame excuse to get Angelica away from the TV when the news was on. I had to beg her for one of her special fruit smoothies. ‘Now!’ I told her. ‘I need it _now!_ ’” 

“Did you mean it?” Jubilee asked, her voice growing more serious. “Do you really wish you were a mutant?” 

“I don’t know. Sure. _It doesn’t matter_ , that’s the whole point! The only thing that does matter is thank God my parents are still out of town. Oh, and, God, if you’re listening, please make sure that Dr. Aziz and everyone in the Lebanese community was watching another channel.” 

He was walking home from school the next day, approaching his driveway as the late afternoon sun was coloring the stark grey branches of the maple tree on their front lawn. Bad Religion was blasting through his headphones, and all in all, he was feeling pretty good. It was bizarre how television made you into an instant celebrity. After seeing him on the news (and in the instant YouTube rebroadcast), a lot of kids were suddenly his best friend, acting like they’d always been fighting for mutant rights and couldn’t wait for the dance. This unearned acclaim was annoying, but he had to admit, it was a lot easier than being part of a tiny fraction of a minority. He began to believe the dance was going to be a stellar success. 

He had noticed the car about five minutes earlier, driving slowly along Park Road, and he was surprised to see it again. A dark blue sedan with three men in it. Now it was parked across the road from his house, and the men, he noticed with a start, were watching him. 

He decided to act cool; ignore them and try to get a better view from the living room window. He turned off his music and began climbing the driveway, feeling their eyes on his back. His heart had started beating faster, though he wasn’t sure why. 

The sound of a window sliding down. “Hey, Mike!” Familiar, friendly. Maybe he knew them somehow. Some business associate of his dad’s? He turned slowly. The front passenger window was down, and a red-haired man in his forties was looking out, one elbow casually through the window as if he were enjoying a Sunday ride down a country lane. “Mind if we talk a minute?” 

Mike stayed where he was. “Sorry, do I know you?” 

The man smiled broadly. “Not yet, but I hope we can be friends. Come here.” Despite the smile, Mike felt like it was an order. He looked at the other two men. They weren’t smiling. He walked down to the foot of the driveway and addressed the man from across the road. 

“What do you want?” 

“Name’s Dennison. Ryan Dennison. I saw you on the news last night. You’re a good speaker; very natural on camera.” 

Mike resisted the urge to say “thanks”. 

The man ran his fingers through his hair, which was done up in a kind of greasy Elvis pompadour, but red. “Is it true what you told the reporter? You’re not a mutant?” 

Something was very wrong here. Mike looked up at his house and it seemed really far away. He turned back and stared the man in the eye. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. What’s it to you?” 

The man laughed as if Mike’s words were clever. “No, you’re not, are you? I can tell.” He turned to his cohorts in the car. “He’s no mutant.” He looked back at Mike, and some of the humor was gone from his face. “You’re making a mistake, son. You’re just young and confused. It seems like a good cause, I’ll bet. Like you’re walking in the footsteps of the Civil Rights Movement. But this is different, Mike. This is a battle for the future of our world.” 

“You’re from Friends of Humanity, aren’t you?” Mike asked. His fear was suddenly replaced by revulsion. “I’m not interested in what you’re selling. See you.” He turned and began walking up the driveway. 

“You will retract your school’s invitation to the mutants, Mike. You will tell your principal that it was a mistake. I know he’ll be happy to hear that.” 

He turned back despite himself. “And why would I do that, Mr. Dennison?” 

“You will do it because we aren’t afraid to fight for human rights — _human_ rights, Michael Haddad — while they still exist. Before Magneto and his armies burn down our houses and make us their slaves.” 

“Go away, Mr. Dennison. I don’t talk to bigots.” 

“You’ve been tricked, Mike. They know how to get humans on their side when they need them.” 

“Get off of my street!” 

“If it’s a fight you’re hungry for, join us. We’ll give you something real to fight for!” 

“I’m going to call the police.” 

“If mutants come to your dance, you will regret it.” 

Mike sang in public for the first time since he was a little boy, when he had to sing “Joy to the World” up on the pulpit at church. But now he wasn’t a kid, and he knew what he was saying and why. He planted his feet and screamed hardcore defiance at the men: 

_“Yeah! I am just an atom in an ectoplasmic sea / Without direction or a reason to exist! / The anechoic nebula rotating in my brain / Is persuading me, contritely, to persist!”_

Dennison looked angry for the first time. “You think this is a game?! You think I’m fooling around here?!” 

Mike pulled out his cell phone and held it up, his finger on the keypad. Dennison turned and spoke to the driver, and the car pulled away with a screech of tires as Mike chanted after them: _“Delirium of Disorder! Delirium of Disorder!”_

He spat out something bitter onto the pavement and walked up to the house. 

“You don’t fucking scare me,” he murmured and slammed the heavy front door, the brass knocker high-kicking into the last of the sunshine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike is singing “Delirium of Disorder” by Bad Religion in the last scene.


	21. Liberty Spikes

The dream was Jubilee’s fault. At the end of a long phone call just before bed, she had told him, “You’re really walking on eggshells now, baby.” He dreamed he was in a big hall which was maybe a gallery in a museum, or the cafeteria at school. His parents and Principal Matthews and undisclosed other agents of judgment were seated at the far end of the space, beckoning him impatiently. To reach them, he had to cross a field of eggs that jiggled and shifted below his feet. He knew that if he lost his concentration for a moment, he would hear the sickening crack, feel the mucousoid slop as it soaked through his socks. The line between chaos and order was oh so thin. The next morning, he politely rejected Angelica’s offer of an omelet for breakfast. 

Mike’s parents flew home from the Middle East the night before the Christmas dance, travel-weary but happy with the success of their business trip. Mike was relieved to hear Angelica expounding on his excellent behavior from the minute they walked in the door, how he had come home directly from school each day and studied diligently until late in the night. The Haddads all thanked the housekeeper for staying at the house with Mike, and then Mr. Haddad took her and her brightly flowered little suitcase to the train station. 

“My sweet child,” his mother said when they were alone, stroking his cheek and looking up at him with misty, loving eyes. “I’m sorry you and I were on such poor terms before we left. I know you’re a good boy.” 

“I never meant to worry you guys,” he assured her and for a minute he forgot the deception in his words and felt only the love. “I know things were a bit wild for a while, but everything’s back on track now, I promise.” 

She ran a finger across the stubble on the shaved side of his head and clucked her tongue. “Thank God, it’s growing back in, yes? No more of that nonsense!” Mike laughed as if they had both endured his previous madness and were now stepping out into a new day. A cold knife of guilt pierced his gut. 

“Go to sleep, Mom,” he said. “You look really tired.” 

“Yes, yes, I am. As soon as your father gets back. Good night, Michael. It’s good to be home. Families have to stick together.” 

When he came downstairs the next morning, he realized he had confused the direction of their jet lag. He’d been expecting to slip out while they were sleeping in, but there they were, well-ensconced at the breakfast table, his father returning to the joys of his bacon-and-eggs American breakfast, his mother still lingering in Lebanon, eating couscous and tomatoes. He felt terribly conspicuous, carrying not only his schoolbag, but a second bag with a change of clothes especially for that night. 

“Mom, Dad, I’m not sure if I told you, but it’s the Christmas dance tonight and I’ll be late, okay?” 

“Are you coming home for dinner first?” his mother said, sipping her strong coffee. 

“No,” he replied as breezily as he could. “I’m on the dance committee, and I have to help set up.” He studied their faces, hoping his involvement in even this wholesome activity didn’t violate the terms of his parole. 

His father nodded without looking up from the paper. “Well, just make sure you don’t skip dinner. A growing boy needs fuel. Look at that! They are threatening another transit strike!” 

A horn sounded outside and, simultaneously, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out and read the text message from Jubilee: _Get ready 2 b TRANSFORMED!_

“Uh, that’s my friend, Rayen. She’s giving me a lift to school.” He hadn’t mentioned Jubilee’s name to his parents since they returned. Quiet appeasement was the strategy of the day. 

He kissed them both and ran out to the car, jumping into the small vehicle that already contained both girls and Xeno. “Go, quick, before they look out and see you guys.” 

Soon they were at Jubilee’s house for the event that she dubbed “Punk Salon 2.0.” Xeno was DJ this time, which meant new hardcore tunes for Mike’s edification and the girls’ annoyance (though Jubes was being slowly dragged into a grudging appreciation of the art of punk). The bed sheet was back over Mike’s shoulders, and Jubilee was high on the power of wielding Xeno’s electric clippers, turning the power switch on and off like she was revving a chainsaw. Mike held his breath as she carefully plotted the angle of her attack and then dived in, cutting a swath across Mike’s scalp. 

Even as Mike’s head was being landscaped, his right arm was extending out of the sheet, held at the wrist by Rayen as she passed the glowing fingertips of her other hand across his lower arm in slow circles. 

It felt a bit like being sparked by Jubes, little sizzling bursts that seemed to run around under his skin like a swarm of electric ants. Involuntarily, he jerked his arm, but she held it firmly in place. “Ow, Rayen!” he shouted over the buzz of the music and the buzz of the clippers. “Is it supposed to hurt like that?” 

“I’m sorry! I know it burns a bit, but it’s not as bad as getting a real tattoo.” 

“You’re following my design?” 

“Yeah. Actually, improving it a bit. Oh, Mike, please don’t look so scared; I know tattoos! Now hold still or I’ll screw up.” 

Xeno sat on the floor looking up at the scene of Mike’s reinvention. “Don’t sweat it, Haddad. She gives me mutant ink all the time.” 

Mike couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice. “And it’s gone the next day?” 

“Yeah, or two. It depends how deep she goes.” 

“It’s just… Oh, man, can you imagine if my parents saw it?” 

Jubilee clicked off the trimmers and picked up her scissors. “Heh, or your haircut? They’ll chain you up in the basement like a mad dog when they see this.” She laughed her bark of a laugh and began evening out the one area where hair still remained. 

Rayen shook her head in agitation. “You are _so_ gonna be busted.” 

Mike wanted to say a sarcastic, _gee, thanks_ but she was right. In his parents’ absence, he’d clashed with the school administration and appeared on TV twice to promote mutant rights. Even without the haircut and tattoo, there was no way they wouldn’t find out. If he thought too much about these betrayals of their trust, his stomach twisted in knots. 

And there was something else: he hadn’t told his friends about his run in with Friends of Humanity in front of his house, or about all the weird, silent phone calls he’d been getting at home in the past week, sometimes in the middle of the night. 

The only solution to his problems was to shut up and press on. Tonight would be awesome and tomorrow… Well, tomorrow didn’t exist yet, so fuck it. 

“Hand me the bottle, Xeno,” Jubilee commanded and he presented her with the Elmer’s gel glue. She squirted a glob into her hand with a definitive farting sound. “Hold tight, lover, here we go!” 

Mike put his worries aside and watched the amazing process in the mirror. He didn’t recognize the kid reflected back at him. It was a beautiful freak, a creature of the imagination made flesh. Mike tried to recall what he had looked like a year earlier, but he couldn’t. It was as if the file on that version of Michael Haddad had been erased. Then Jubilee was done, pulling the sheet off his naked shoulders. Rayen was finished, too, her fingers making a few last strokes across the whole of the design, filling his arm with delicious warmth. 

Mike stood slowly and took in his reflection. He had a full Mohawk, glued into liberty spikes five inches high. On his forearm, in gothic letters were the words, “You Are the Government!” in a semi-circle around a clenched fist. He held it up and his three friends beamed. 

It felt like the heat in his arm was spreading over his whole body, erupting in his core like a power plant. He looked back into the mirror. “Hey,” he managed in a voice husky with emotion. “It’s me.” 

 

“Ready for your debut, Haddad?” Jubilee asked as Rayen pulled into the school parking lot just before second period. 

“I keep bumping my spikes on the ceiling,” Mike said, gingerly touching the top of his Mohawk and looking uneasily at the flow of students in and out of the building’s side entrance. Rayen switched off the car, and now they were all looking at him. “Okay, let’s do it.” 

They grabbed their bags and stepped out. It only took a few seconds before the first comment (“Whoa! Rock on, man!”) and the second (“Queer!”) reached him through the breeze. He and Jubilee exchanged looks. 

“Any publicity is good publicity,” she told him as she gave a critic the finger. 

“I’ll see you guys at lunch,” Rayen said. “We’ll put up the final posters, okay?” She ran into the school, her furry black backpack with the red horns bouncing against her hip. 

Jubilee checked the time on her phone. “Hey, Mike, kiss me, I gotta race to chemistry. See you tonight, Xe!” Mike watched her leave — the sweet sway of her hips beguiling him as always — before he turned back to his friend. 

“What’s up with you? You didn’t say a word in the car.” 

“I’m mysterious, didn’t you read my press kit?” 

“You didn’t even tell Rayen to turn down the Decemberists. You have a fever or something?” 

Xeno leaned against the car and lit up a cigarette. Mike did a quick scan for teachers, as smoking was not allowed in the lot. Xeno took a long drag and blew the smoke straight up in the air, like a steam engine. He fixed Mike with one piercing eye, the other closed as if he was trying out a pirate’s eye view. “If your parents throw you out tonight, you can come live with me and Mom. She won’t mind; she’s cool.” 

The words pissed Mike off. This day was not about consequences; it was about victory. “They’re not throwing me out, Xeno! Family’s important in our culture. You don’t just drop each other when it gets tough. You don’t run away from your problems.” Xeno didn’t respond. “And that’s not what you wanted to say. There’s something else, right?” 

“I’m not coming to the dance tonight.” 

“What?! Why not? This whole thing’s practically your fault. You have to be there.” 

Xeno picked up his backpack and pulled it on. “I’m not even attending any high school in the district now. I’m not eligible, right?” He tightened the straps and started walking away across the lot. 

“Hold it! That’s total bullshit, Xe. You’re officially registered as a homeschooler; that gives you the right to —” 

Xeno turned back to Mike. “Then I don’t want to, okay? I hate dances. Is that so weird?” 

Mike tried to read what was going on behind the stubborn face. His new friend had a proud streak in him that resisted sympathy, and Mike didn’t know how far he was supposed to push. “Do you think maybe something bad’s going to happen?” 

Xeno marched back to him angrily. “No! What do you think? I wouldn’t have your back if there was going to be trouble?” He took a deep hungry drag at his cigarette. “No, man… it’s just…” He trailed off, exhaling the smoke. At the other end of the lot, two groups of boys were talking trash at each other, tossing their heads like roosters. Xeno shook his head in disgust. “I can’t walk into one of these buildings again. I get too fucked up when I see those rows of lockers and smell the chlorine. It smells like fucking death.” 

“You think you’ll get, like, flashbacks of what they did to you at school?” 

“Fuck, I do sound like a soap opera, don’t I? No, it’s not just about me. It’s about all the liars and haters, and how everyone there is either a victim or a perpetrator. High school is the breeding ground of every crime in this society.” 

Mike laughed despite himself. “That sounds like the beginning of a lyric.” 

Xeno smiled at the ground. “Too long for a tattoo, though. Anyway, you’ll just have to be awesome without Xeno Evil.” He body-checked Mike into the side of a car. 

“Gee, I wonder if we’ll remember how.” Mike moshed back, using his puffed out chest as a battering ram. They began shoving and bumping each other, ending up in a clinch, laughing and scrambling for footholds until Mike yelled, “Watch the hair!” 

Xeno pushed him back against another car more aggressively than their game called for. Mike lost his smile and stared at him uncertainly for a minute, panting lightly. _Who was this anger really for?_ , he wondered. Without another word, Xeno turned and walked away, waving farewell over his shoulder. Mike wanted to call him back, but really, there was nothing more to say. Nothing other than, “Don’t go, I need you here,” or, “I’m scared.” But none of that was rational. 

Mike cheered up as the day progressed. Everyone was excited about the dance and curious about what mutants might arrive. His media-enhanced status still seemed to grant him a lot of favor with the student body, and he sort of regretted refusing a lunchtime interview with another local station. While he was growing comfortable with public speaking, the idea made him too nervous with his parents back in town. Maybe, somehow, he’d be able to get through the whole thing without them ever finding out. Then tomorrow, life would go back to normal. This scenario suddenly seemed possible, and Mike allowed himself a second to feel pretty damn smart. 

Jubilee had been receiving emails and text messages from her extended mutant network about who would and wouldn’t be coming that evening. “A lot of them are flaking. They’re just too scared some shit will go down.” 

Mike was frustrated. “But that’s why we have security! If no mutants come, we’ll be wasting an amazing opportunity.” 

“Not to mention we’ll look like total dorks,” she added. Mike knew that wasn’t the point, but he agreed the prospect sucked. 

Suddenly someone grabbed his shoulder and twisted him half around. He spun angrily to confront the aggressor and was shocked to find himself face-to-face with a bug-eyed monster whose antennae bounced crazily on its forehead. Over his shoulder stood a second creature, it’s nose a long, wobbly tentacle, bobbing obscenely. It took him half a second to realize they were cheesy Halloween masks. 

“Hey, is this where we come for the mutant hoe down? I’m looking for a girlfriend!” The “monsters” wore team jackets; the voice was unmistakably Aaron Hovak’s. 

Bug face #2 shoved past Aaron and pushed Mike down, pinning him to the table. “Hey, I want some mutant pussy, too!” It was, of course, David Rourke. Mike started to tell him off, and the mask’s long rubber nose fell into his open mouth. He spat it out in disgust and, using his feet on the bench for leverage, threw his tormentor off him. 

Rourke crashed to the ground, and Mike rose to his feet in a fury, his mouth tasting foully of rubber. “Get the fuck off me. Is this supposed to be funny?” He looked up and saw two more hideously masked guys in team jackets approaching. “Jubilee, get out of here,” Mike said quietly through gritted teeth. 

She came around the table to stand beside him. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.” 

Mike stared at the four masked figures. It was a grotesque parody of the strength and beauty of his mutant friends and it made him sick. Or maybe it showed a different message than the boys intended: it wasn’t mutants but they who were the monstrosities — hatred embodied, standing before him with a twisted sense of entitlement. 

Hovak pulled off his mask. His face wore a sweaty grin and his hair stood on end. “What’s the matter, Haddad? I thought you wanted tonight to be a freak show. Me and the guys just wanna make it a little more interesting.” 

Mike realized that all conversation in the cafeteria had come to a halt, and everyone was staring at their confrontation. His pulse raced, but he knew he mustn’t back down. “We aren’t going to let you make trouble tonight, Aaron.” 

“Ha! You have a fucked up idea of who’s causing trouble here, Haddad. We have more right to come to our _own school’s dance_ then a bunch of mutie freak outsiders.” 

Rourke was on his feet, his mask lending him an air of surreal menace. He grabbed Mike by the front of the t-shirt and pulled him close. “And who’s gonna stop us if we want to come?” 

“I am,” said a loud voice behind them. They turned and found themselves facing Principal Matthews. For once, Mike was glad to see the administrator’s apoplectic countenance. “Take off those ridiculous masks right now.” The gang complied, looking angry and sheepish at once. “The four of you are barred from the dance. If I hear that you showed up, you will be suspended. If anyone else you know shows up to cause trouble, you’ll be held responsible and suspended. Is that clear?” 

“That’s not fair,” Aaron said. “If it’s not even us —” 

Matthews cut him off. “Well, then, you better do your best to see that no troublemakers show up. Now get out of this cafeteria and get to your next class. Be early.” 

The boys gave Michael and Jubilee an evil stare. Rourke mouthed something unintelligible at them — “I’ll get you later” or something equally original. 

Mike was breathing hard. He reached up and felt the damage to his spikes. Matthews followed his gaze and shook his head in disgust. Mike controlled himself enough to say, “Thank you, Mr. Matthews.” 

Jubilee nodded. “Yeah, that was awesome. If the administration doesn’t stand up to that kind of hatred —” 

“Give it a rest, Ms. Lee. Do you think that was some kind of victory? I just barred four stars of my winning basketball team from the Christmas dance. What do you think that does to morale at the school? I knew this dance was a bad idea.” He turned and walked away, and it seemed he was still mumbling under his breath, cursing them. 

Just then a student who Mike could only place as “generic popular girl” bounced up to them as if there hadn’t almost been a rumble. “Hi, Michael! And you’re, uh. Julie, right? Remember me? I’m Brittany, from the school dance committee. We’re all _really_ excited about our… um, our _guests_ tonight!” Brittany over-emphasized at least a word or two per sentence. 

Mike managed a polite smile. “That’s great, Brittany. I think it’ll be really cool to have them here.” 

“Totally!” she agreed. “You guys are going to help with decorations this afternoon, right?” 

Jubilee pushed the hair off her forehead, rolled her eyes and then smiled so sweetly, Mike’s teeth hurt. “Sure! That’s _just_ what my whole life has been leading up to, Brittany!” 

 

As the afternoon progressed, Mike was surprised to find that the dance committee kids weren’t as empty-headed and plastic as he had feared. In fact, he was developing a warm spot for people who cared about more than just getting to the mall the minute school let out. And — bonus — he and Jubilee got fed when the committee ordered in pizza. 

It was almost time to open the doors and the cafeteria actually had something resembling atmosphere thanks to the work of the lighting guys from the Theatre Department. The student DJs weren’t bad either, showing Mike a collection of songs that actually veered from the Top-40 into cooler realms. 

The X-Gene Dance Committee had toned down the rhetoric in the last week, and he watched with satisfaction as Rayen and Jubilee hung a simple banner that read: “Diversity Is Our Greatest Strength! Lincoln High Welcomes Our Guests.” 

Two big security guards appeared an hour before the dance, and Mike tried without much success to strike up a conversation with them. Like Wolf, the mutant bouncer at the Spiderhole, they were men of few words and intimi-dating stature. Still, they let him tag along as they did their efficient pre-dance check, locking all the doors to the cafeteria except the front entrance where the ticket-takers sat, and the fire doors at the side. Mike found himself telling them about Aaron Hovak and the other students who had threatened trouble that afternoon. This earned him the only smile the big men had to offer. 

“Don’t worry, kid, your buddies won’t get past us.” 

Mike felt like a fool, ratting out his former teammates like some nervous nerd. He was making a big deal out of stupid high school grandstanding. He slunk back to the front to see if there was any pizza left, only to be grabbed on route by Jubilee who dragged him unceremoniously into the girls’ bathroom. She had his dance clothes with her as well as her own bag of supplies and she wasted no time in getting to work. 

Soon he was ready. His spikes rose again proudly from his head and his dark eyes were intensified by the black eyeliner that surrounded them. He was wearing a white t-shirt with the sleeves crudely cut off and studded leather wristbands that drew the eye to his temporary tattoo. His tight, black jeans vanished into a pair of 14-hole Doc Martens boots they had found in a thrift store on the weekend. The woman at the counter had told him, “That’s a total find! Someone’s looking out for you, guy.” 

When she was done with dressing him, Jubilee presented Mike with a surprise gift: a well-worn, black leather jacket onto which she had sewn some emblematic lengths of chain. She hung the jacket over one shoulder, leaving his tattooed arm bare. “Stand like this. Yeah, look tough.” She pulled out her cell phone to take a picture. “Say ‘motherfucker’!!” 

“Motherfucker!” he snarled and managed to keep a straight face until the picture was taken. He knew he was a punk cliché and that Xeno would have ribbed him endlessly if he saw, but he felt good. Jubilee came in close to show him the picture and he spun her around like a romantic hero and kissed her in an enthusiastic collision of tooth and tongue. 

The door swung open, and Brittany gasped with theatrical gusto and then giggled. Mike blushed and muttered, “Sorry, we were just leaving.” As he slipped out the door, he heard her tell Jubilee “He’s so hot.” 

In the end, it was the very ordinariness of the evening that made it so special. Just a dumb high school dance with kids trying to be cool, hearts being broken, and romantic fantasies being fanned. Mike had been worried no mutants would show up, but they came; maybe 25 among the hundreds of Lincoln students. Most were just recognizable because they were strangers to the school, but a few obvious mutants had been brave enough to face the crowd. Mike was pleasantly startled throughout the evening to come across a green face or pair of webbed hands, and the rest of the student body seemed to get into it, too. An early highlight was a boy who danced in a kind of dreamy sway, the air filling with colored bubbles in his wake as he moved across the dance floor. 

Principal Matthews stood unhappily at the side, talking into the ears of various teachers with a sour look on his face. Actually, he seemed kind of worried. _Get over yourself,_ Mike thought. The security guards stood at the entrance to the cafeteria looking bored; there was no feeling of threat in the air. Mike turned to Jubilee and said, “We did it. We really did it.” After weeks of doubt and worry, everything seemed to have fallen into place. They headed for the dance floor, where they were often interrupted by guests who came up to thank him for what he’d done. Mike began to think that this whole celebrity thing wasn’t too bad. 

They danced fast and slow together. He felt the heat of her body next to his and smelled that special scent she had when he nuzzled close to her hair. Mike wondered if it were possible to meet your soul mate this young. The idea was scary and thrilling. He also wondered if he could find a place to fuck her later that night. He really, really wanted to. Maybe wearing his new boots. 

Then he saw something strange. Just a glimpse. Someone going through one of the doors at the back of the cafeteria. Someone in a rubber Halloween mask. 

“Shit,” he murmured. “Jubes, I have to check something.” 

“What? What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, I just… Would you get me some more punch? I’ll meet you over by the stage in a minute.” He picked up his leather jacket which he had dropped at their feet when the dancing had really heated up. 

He vanished through the crowd before she could ask any more questions. He knew he had aroused her curiosity, but there was no sense in getting her upset if there was nothing to be upset about. Just before he reached the door where he’d seen the mysterious figure, someone grabbed his arm. He spun around and Paul Greenstein was staring at him forlornly. “Dude,” he slurred, “I need a mutant girlfriend! Bad! Hey, the chick with those slit things on her cheek — do you know her?” 

Mike looked around vaguely, but couldn’t see the girl in question. He had to get away. “Um, no Paul, but if I meet her, I’ll, uh, put in a good word.” 

“Oh yeah, please! I’m totally in love. What do you think it’s like when she gives you head?” 

Paul bounced away into the crowd, and Mike tried the door, one of the locked ones he had watched the security guards check. It was open. He looked back towards the two big men, way across the room at the entrance. He looked for Jubilee by the stage, but he couldn’t see her. “Fuck,” he said under his breath and ducked through the door. 

The noise of the dance was just a dull thud with the big metal door closed behind him. It was weird to be there alone in what was usually a bustling school thoroughfare. Only one bank of lights was on, and strange reflections glinted off of the trophy cases. Eyes of long-gone student athletes stared at him from ancient photographs. The corridor was cool after the heat of the cafeteria, and he felt his sweaty body chilling rapidly. He pulled on his leather jacket as he got his bearings. Going right took you to the front lobby; left and left again, the gymnasium… He saw movement. Someone looking around the corridor to his left, eyes staring inhumanly through the rubber face. 

“Hovak!” he shouted. “I don’t what kind of bullshit you’re up to, but I’m not going to let you ruin —” The masked figure vanished around the corner. “Shit,” Mike muttered and ran after him. There was nowhere his quarry could have gone but into the gym, and that door should have been locked, too. Mike grabbed the handle and paused, his heart suddenly beating rapidly. He depressed the latch and, with a click, the door swung wide. 

Mike couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing: and their masks weren’t alien bugs; they were caricatures of presidents. Bushes Junior and Senior, Reagan, Clinton, and one Mike figured for Nixon, each with a rubbery crowd-pleasing grin. The men wore black, padded hunting vests with all kinds of shiny, intimidating gear on their belts. 

He had meant the words to sound threatening, but his hoarse, “Who are you?” came out scared. He was grabbed by the arm and spun around to face another Bush. He had no time to bluster or protest before the fist slammed into his stomach and he went down in shock. 

He was on the floor, curled up, trying to breath. He knew he had to get up, but it wasn’t possible. He could see feet in heavy boots moving around him. He had to get up. 

Another man — was that Carter? News trivia flooded his brain — was moving towards him. In his incomprehension, Mike reached out a hand to him for help, but the man’s heavy boot connected with his side, igniting his senses in bright pinwheels of pain. 

_Get up get up get up!_

He rolled away from the attacker and staggered to his feet. “Please…” he heard himself gasp as he turned to face the presidents. Black eyeholes and crazy shit-eating grins all turned his way, but no one was coming to his rescue. Another one must have been behind him, because he has smacked in the back of the head and sent back to the floor, crying out in fear. 

The man in the Reagan mask called out, “That’s enough now.” His voice was awful — distorted electronically, emotionless, deadly. “Leave him. Let’s get ready,” he said. Mike was left to writhe on the floor. He saw the men pulling canisters from the sports bag and clipping them to their belts. _Gas? Oh, God, help me._

“Don’t,” he choked out. “Don’t do this. We don’t mean any harm. Mutants have the right to… to live with the same —” 

“Fucking, mutant lover!” yelled a voice that was way too close, and suddenly he was being lifted by his Mohawk with two hands. He screamed and smashed at the unseen attacker, punching and kicking wildly. He felt his fist connect with something hard, maybe the man’s jaw, but then another heavy presence was coming up on his left and a fist that felt like concrete connected with his face. 

He was on the floor again with no memory of having fallen, though the pain in his knee seemed to speak of some violent passage. Through his left eye, he saw only a red haze. 

_Get up get up_ , the voice in his head repeated, but he was too far away from any kind of motor control do heed this dire coach. His head lolled painfully to the other side and he could see that the door to the hallway was open again. The man in the Reagan mask was there, talking to someone in the corridor through the robotic voice-distortion device. 

“Just tear gas and flares, Fred. Just going to frighten them. Now go away, you don’t need to know any more.” 

“But who was that shouting? Was that a student?!” _It was Principal Matthews out there!_ “You said students wouldn’t be —” 

“Just go back to your dance; but stay close to the door; you’ll need to leave in a hurry.” Mike tried to find a voice to call out, but his head was full of buzzing. Robot Reagan closed the door and Mike felt the despair overwhelm him. He started to cry. _Help me._

Some animal force inside him made him move, though all he could do was crawl blindly across the floor. There were footsteps near his head. Robot Reagan was walking with him as he dragged himself relentlessly across the glossy hardwood. “It didn’t need to be this way, Michael. Remember that we warned you.” 

He crawled. The meeting outside his house with the Friends of Humanity played in his brain with mocking clarity. _This is what happens when you don’t listen to your parents,_ taunted a trite and horrifying voice in his head. Mike’s Doc Martens squeaked against the hardwood, his breathing was labored. 

Reagan again, his clean, new hiking boots in Mike’s peripheral vision: “We will do what we have to, to protect humanity,” he said in his disguised voice, and Mike knew what a fool he had been not to see the danger for what it was. He knew, with doomed certainty, that whoever got hurt tonight — mutants, humans, students, friends, family — it was his fault. 

He was lost; his will to move evaporated. He rolled onto his back and looked up at them with his one open eye. “Don’t… hurt…” he managed, but then he saw the man in the Clinton mask pull a gun from belt, and the words dried up in his mouth. 

“Holster that,” said Reagan. “They hear gunshots, this is over before it starts.” 

But Clinton held it firm, muttering, “Mutant lover. Fucking _camel jockey!_ ” Mike knew the man wanted to just _do it_ — blow the stupid kid away. 

It was so strange. Just a few minutes earlier, everything had been so hopeful. Now, the span of his life was reduced to the time it would take a bullet to reach him. So simple: life-bang-death. He almost wished the man would pull the trigger and get it over with. The sound of the door opening seemed a million miles away, and then it was Jubilee’s voice. “Get away from him!” 

_No!_ He couldn’t find voice to scream, _No, Jubilee, get out!_

And then chaos, men running, cursing as fireworks exploded in their faces. Mike rolled onto his side with a groan and watched his beautiful girlfriend, his love, pressing her hands against the banks of switches by the door. Electricity pulsed through her arms and, after a sudden burst of sparks, the gym was plunged into darkness. 

Shouting men and random movement; a glimmer of hope ignited within him and he was on his feet, trying to reach the wall so he could get his bearings. _Jubilee, run!_ he thought desperately. At the far end of the of the gym, a door swung open into the light of the parking lot, and she was screaming, “Michael, here! Come this way!” _No, no, he’s got a gun!_

She shot fireworks at anyone who approached as he stumbled through the shadows, dragging himself along the wall. He saw her turn towards him, and there was animal wildness in her eyes, pointing her hands to shoot. “It’s me! It’s me!” he screamed and she ran along the wall to collect him. 

Their hands linked, she practically dragged him towards the door. He heard Robot Reagan yelling, “Don’t shoot, damn it! Use the Taser!” They both turned in horror just as the weapon released its long shock cord. Mike watched helplessly as it planted itself in Jubilee’s sleeve. The electricity hit her like a wave. She jerked upright and her eyes glowed white, but then the end hooked in her arm sparked wildly, and the shock seemed to rebound along the cord to its source. The man holding the Taser screamed and hit the floor, convulsing. Everyone froze for a moment. 

“Whoa,” Jubilee breathed. “Cool.” 

“Look out!” Mike shouted as he saw the man in the Clinton mask again draw his gun. This time, Mike knew the man was not going to let himself be stopped. He and Jubilee ran through the door as the first shot hit the jamb near her head. She screamed, and then they were outside, moving across the pavement, trying to get around the corner to the front of the school; but Mike was limping and half blind. He looked over his shoulder in terror, but no one had followed them out of the gym. 

“Hey, hey!” Jubilee was shouting. Mike saw a curly-haired girl having a smoke on a butt-strewn island of grass that separated two sections of the lot. “Get help!” 

“Tell them!” Mike gasped. “Tell security; they’re going to attack the dance!” 

“What are you talking about?” the girl asked in shock, and the horror in her eyes as she looked at his damaged face made him feel the pain afresh. Just then, Clinton emerged from the gym, and a shot exploded into the pavement at their feet. Mike and Jubilee hit the ground and the girl screamed and ran. And as she ran, her legs lengthened until the long dress she was wearing seemed like a mini skirt. With only a few strides of her giant mutant legs, she had rounded the corner. 

Mike and Jubilee were on the ground, barely hidden behind an ornamental rock, watching as the men emerged from the gym door, walking purposefully across the lot towards them, two now with guns drawn. 

Mike’s voice was shaking. “C-Can you take them out?” 

“I don’t know,” she moaned in fear. “I used a lot of power already…” 

“Michael, there’s nowhere to run,” came the robot voice, and he was right. They were up against a fence that they could never climb in time. How long would it take security to come? Too long. 

Then a sick screech of tires and a familiar, battered Toyota jumped the curb, crossed the patch of grass, and pulled to a sudden, thumping stop between them and the armed men. 

“Hey, guys, want a ride?!” called Paul Greenstein from the driver’s seat. They scrambled into the backseat and, before they’d even closed the door, Greenstein gunned the engine. The car barreled toward the masked men, and Greenstein screeched circles around the them, yelling, “Whooooooooooooo!” 

A shot spider-webbed one of the side windows, and Mike and Jubilee cowered on the floor of the backseat. 

“Shit,” Greenstein muttered and spun through one more circuit before tearing out of the parking lot and out into the streets. 

“Jesus Christ, Paul!” Jubilee was screaming. “We could have been shot while you were playing demolition derby! Are you fucking stoned?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Greenstein replied happily. 

Mike found his voice. “How did you know we needed… ?” 

“I was in my car enjoying a doob and I saw the whole thing: you guys running, the hot mutant girl with the legs — wow imagine those over your shoulders… fuck!” 

Mike twisted in his seat, looking back towards the school through the rear window, fighting against nausea as the car skidded around corners. Where were the attackers? And where was security? What if they blew off the mutant girl when she went in? Maybe they wouldn’t believe her at all! 

“We have to _do_ something,” Mike said. “Paul, stop here! Stop!” 

Jubilee said, “Whoa, take it easy! We should be getting you to a hospital. What do you want to do?” 

Paul pulled up to the curb beside a small park. Mike threw the door open and stumbled out of the car. He hurled himself across the park as if a pack of dogs was on his heels, a desperate, uneven skip on his damaged knee. His mind was spinning, spinning, no control. _We’re way too exposed! They can see us!_

“Mike! Stop!” Jubilee yelled as she ran after him, but he wouldn’t stop, not until he reached the fence, sheltering in the shadows behind a small stand of bare trees. She caught up to him and grabbed his shoulders. “What are you doing?!” 

“I gotta call 911!” He dug in his jacket for his cell phone, praying it hadn’t been lost. “They’ll hurt someone, I gotta…” He pulled the phone out of an inner pocket and tried dialing, but his hands were shaking too much. 

Jubilee put a steady hand on his. “I’m sure the security guys already called the cops, but hold on. I’ll phone.” He nodded with relief as she pulled out her own cell and hit three buttons. “Rayen? What’s happening?” 

Mike screamed, “You’re calling Rayen?! No! Call the cops! FUCK!” 

Jubilee covered her ears and bent over her phone. “No, honey! We’re around the corner. No, we’re okay… Well, not okay, but okay. Are you still in the cafeteria?” She looked up at him. “Mike, the whole school is in lockdown. The cops are coming. She did what? No way! Ha! Mike, that cow Erin Bendis, you know, the one who always tortures Rayen in Chemistry? She’s having total hysterics like a three year old!” 

“She’s such a fucktard,” Paul guffawed, appearing suddenly at their side and startling Mike. “Is she making that _hinh-hinh-hinh_ sound? Is her makeup totally running?” 

Mike stumbled away restlessly across the grass, straining his eyes into the darkness. He saw a looming figure in the distance and almost cried out before he realized it was just the war memorial. They were in the same park where he and Bobby had talked back in the spring. He suddenly wanted his friend there. He wanted everyone he cared about around him where he could keep an eye on them, make sure they were safe. He could hear police sirens moving through the neighborhood. Mike felt the terror returning like a cold river in his chest. He doubled back to join Jubilee and Paul. 

She was still on the phone, chattering as if things were normal. Paul was walking the brick border of a flower bed like he was on a tightrope, grunting obscene rap lyrics in his gravelly, nasal voice. Mike noticed a purple button on the lapel of his battered old overcoat that read “Porn, pot and Mom’s apple pie.” 

Their stupid calm made the terror grip him all the more fiercely. “What if they come looking for us?” Mike shouted at them. 

“Rayen, hold on.” She walked up to Mike and grabbed his shoulders. “They don’t know where we went, baby. It’s going to be all right.” 

He’d be okay if he could only control his breathing which was coming in short, painful jerks that made his ribs throb. “You really think w-we’re safe?” he asked, and the cell phone in his hand rang. He dropped it in panic, like he had discovered a scorpion crouching on his palm. The three of them watched it as it sang its merry little tune on the dead grass. Jubilee picked it up and handed it back to Mike. 

“Hello?” he managed. 

The robot voice responded. “Hello, Michael. You and the mutant cunt spoiled our attack. Your list of crimes against humanity is growing.” 

Mike seemed to have no control over how his voice emerged. It was an alien thing full of hatred and terror. “I know who y-you are; you’re Ryan Dennison, right? I called the police, you know! You’re finished!” 

“I’ll tell you who I am, Michael. I am the sword of vengeance, and you had better listen to me carefully. You’re not going to call the police. And when they come calling on you, you are going to say nothing about your meeting with Friends of Humanity. You don’t know who the attackers were tonight and the attack came as a complete surprise.” 

“I don’t take orders from you!” 

“We know where you live, Michael. We know your every move. If you tell the police anything, we will kill you and your parents. First you will all suffer, then you will die. Do you understand?” 

“You-you can’t! I won’t let you!” 

“Is the mutant cunt with you?” 

Mike looked up at Jubilee, shaking with fear. Her face paled when she saw the fear in his eyes. “What? What is it?” she asked. 

The monotonous, plastic voice continued. “Tell her if we see her, she’s dead. We will slash her aunt’s throat in front of her and then we’ll kill her. If she doesn’t want blood on her hands, she had better disappear.” 

Mike started crying. “Fuck you!” he screamed into the phone and kicked the fence hard. His knee screamed in agony and he fell onto the cold ground, wailing, the phone flying from his hand. Paul and Jubilee both dropped down beside him, but he waved them away, grinding his teeth against the pain as he scrambled to pick up his phone again. “If you hurt her, I’ll… I’ll —” 

“Give her the message, Michael, and then go home. No more little rebellions from you, punk. Don’t go to the police or we’ll make your family suffer. They’ll die and you’ll be responsible. Remember, we’re watching.” The caller disconnected. 

Mike dropped the phone to the ground, tears streaming down his face. 

“Who was that, Mike?! Who the fuck _are_ these people?” 

“Friends…” His breath hitched. “F-friends of Humanity.” 

From Jubilee’s phone, Rayen’s voice shouted like a trapped pixie. Jubilee put the phone to her ear. “Honey, I’ll call you back, k?” and hung up. She squatted by Mike’s side. “Oh shit, shit. We have to think this through. Okay. first, we got to get you to a hospital. You could have broken bones or anything. And your eye, oh God, your eye’s a mess. 

“Or you might have a concussion man,” Paul added. “They can be serious. I had two of them. Wait… Three!” 

“No hospitals! They’ll call my parents. I can’t tell them about all this!” 

Jubilee touched his shoulder gently. “Mike, I know your folks are going to be mad, but you need them now! And then we’ll call the police, okay? You can’t just —” 

He moaned and dropped his head into his hands. “No, no, no! They said th-they’d kill them if I talked to the police. They said…” he screamed in frustration and pounded on the cold, hard earth. “Oh, God, I fucked everything up! They said… Oh God, Jubilee! You have to leave! They’ll kill us, and… our families! Your aunt!” 

Jubilee’s eyes went wide, her lip began to tremble and she dropped gracelessly onto the ground beside him. “I don’t understand! How could they know about us? How could they be phoning you?!” 

Michael’s stomach kicked over. “The Friends of Humanity… They came to my house. A-a few weeks ago. Told me to cancel the dance. Um, I… I guess I should have told you.” He realized immediately how bad this was. Jubilee’s mouth was hanging open. He could see her mind turning, see the storm building in her black eyes. 

She covered the distance between stupefaction and fury in just a few seconds. “You… You fucking, stupid asshole! You knew, didn’t you! You saw one of them when we were dancing and you went right after him like a little hero, _didn’t you?!_ ” She jumped to her feet and began pacing around him in small circles of rage. 

“No! I-I thought it was just Hovak and his crew! If I had known —” 

“Then you’re an idiot as well as an asshole! The fucking _Friends of Humanity_ warn you off, and you don’t tell me? You don’t tell _anyone?!!_ ” 

Everything was hurting again as he gaped at her fury. “I thought it was just bullshit! I-I didn’t want you to be worried —” 

“Worried?! They could have killed you!!” She loomed over him with her fists raised. He gave a choked whimper and curled himself into a ball. He started coughing painfully through his sobs. Jubilee dropped her fists and burst into tears herself. She touched his head awkwardly. “Oh, God… Look what they did to you, baby.” She dropped onto her haunches beside him, shoulders heaving with her sobs. “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” 

They remained frozen in this tableau of misery for what felt like a long time before Mike steeled his resolve against the tears. He pulled himself slowly to his feet and immediately got dizzy. He balled his fists and breathed forcefully through his nose until he felt steadier. “Okay. This is my fault and I have to fix it. I have to leave before anyone else gets hurt.” 

“Leave?” Jubilee said through her tears. “What the fuck? What am I supposed to do?” 

Mike couldn’t look at her. “You… you go to Rayen’s. Or maybe you and your aunt should go to your relatives in California! You’ll be safe there. Go to a hotel tonight and —” 

“I’m not going anywhere without you, fucktard!” she screamed and under her palms, flattened against the cold ground, red and green sparks hissed and spit. Mike actually managed a deep breath. He felt unbelievably relieved at this declaration of loyalty. She looked up at him. “Besides, once my aunt figures out I’m trouble — finds out I’m a _mutant_ for fuck’s sake — she’s going to throw me out. Just like my relatives in California did.” 

Paul cleared his throat. “Uh, this is all really impressive and emo and shit, but Mikey, why aren’t you asking your parents for help here? That’s kind of what they’re for.” 

Mike felt his manly resolve crumbling. “No! I can’t! My parents told me not to get involved! They said I’d get in trouble and they were _right_. Fuck, I betrayed them, and now these… these terrorists are going to kill them if I don’t leave. No! No way am I calling them.” He wiped his runny nose on the sleeve of his leather jacket. “It’s time I took some fucking responsibility. I’m not a little kid.” 

Jubilee got to her feet and the three of them stood in a loose circle, saying nothing, like they were waiting for something to happen. Paul stuck out his tongue, and Mike realized he was catching snowflakes. It had begun to snow, the first of the season. The moment was perversely calm — a prayer before battle. Mike was starting to shiver with cold and noticed for the first time that Jubilee was wearing only a gauzy yellow shirt with a black, cotton vest. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, sharing whatever heat he had to offer. 

Jubilee looked at Paul. Her voice was steady, her black hair turning to a starscape in the snow. “Do you mind going back to the car for a minute? I have to talk to Mike alone.” 

Greenstein began rocking his head from side to side in rhythm, and then started rapping again, his mouth smoking like a dragon’s in the cold air. He turned and stomped away, his ass shaking ludicrously to the beat. 

Mike didn’t dare speak. He had the sudden horrible thought he was about to be dumped, and he knew that would be worse than anything that had happened so far that night. Without preamble, Jubilee began her story. 

“My parents… they didn’t just die, okay? It wasn’t, like, a skiing accident or whatever you’ve been thinking. They were murdered.” She pulled away from him and walked a few feet before squatting low and wrapping her slim arms around her knees. “It was underworld shit… Chinese mafia in LA. I was only 13, so they told me it happened in a robbery. Like Batman’s parents or something, right? But I heard my aunts and uncles talking. I heard the truth.” 

Mike found her words unbearable, like he had caused that tragedy, too. Was this what everyone had to live through? This parade of hideous calamity? Why had he never seen it before? The cozy landscape of his life was exploding into terrifying vistas. He was on an ice floe — freezing, floating away from everyone he knew on currents he couldn’t comprehend. 

“I don’t know if they were involved. Maybe they were criminals too. Maybe they just owed money, or refused to pay protection or something. It doesn’t matter. They _died!_ ” She raised her head off her knees, but didn’t turn to him. Her voice chimed through the empty park. “Do you understand?! My mother and father got themselves fucking _killed_ and now you’re doing the same thing, you _stupid fucking moron_! I love you and you’re an _idiot_ and you’re painting giant fucking targets on your back!” She rose suddenly to her feet and screamed at him. “I don’t want to lose you, too, Michael Haddad!” 

“Jubilee,” he stammered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” It was all he could say, the only thought that existed in his head. Sorry, sorry… 

She moved to him and it wasn’t quite an embrace. More like the last two pillars in a collapsing building, leaning on each other because that was all there was. 

They found Paul sleeping in his car with the engine on. Mike thought briefly of death by carbon-monoxide, but Paul would probably outlive them all, finally stumbling stoned off a cliff at age 97. 

“Greenstein,” he called as they climbed into the backseat, shivering, clinging to each other for warmth. 

Paul snorted awake, “It’s just a cigarette, Officer!” He sat up and smacked his forehead with his palm three times. “So, what are we doing now?” 

“Can you drive us to the bus station?” 

“Sure. Mi chariot is su chariot, or whatever.” 

“Where are we going?” Jubilee asked. “We have maybe 75 dollars between us, we’re underage…” 

Mike could hear the weariness in her voice, but he was suddenly feeling a glimmer of hope. He squeezed her tighter. “I think I know somewhere safe. I mean, I _hope_ they’ll help. They have to!” 

Paul looked interested. “Is it far? I like road trips.” 

Mike smiled for the first time in what felt like days. “Three, four hours, I guess. We can pay for gas and chips, at least.” 

“Bonus!” He pulled his cell phone from the glove compartment and dialed. “Mom, I’m sleeping at Tony Huang’s tonight. Yeah, his parents are home. Okay, see you tomorrow. Love you, you’re beautiful.” He looked back at Mike and Jubilee in the rearview mirror and said. “Hope you like Phish; I have 18 hours of live bootlegs to choose from.” 

 

*** 

 

The middle of the night was a time Bobby knew all too well. When everything in his life was going as smoothly as a run on fresh powder, he could sleep like a log until the alarm clock woke him. John’s arrival had been the beginning of such a period of blissful oblivion. The nightly warmth of John’s presence in his bed and the weight of his limbs had been exactly the soporific Bobby’s soul craved. Even when they awoke in the dark, long enough to share a groggy orgasm, Bobby would quickly crash back into obliterating nothingness before he could even wipe up properly. 

This brief respite in the life of an insomniac had ended by the middle of November. Since then, Bobby had been snapping awake around 2:30 in the morning as if his mind had stumbled into a mousetrap somewhere in the dark cupboards of his unconscious. There was no warning, no nightmare precursor; he would just find himself suddenly conscious, heart pounding. 

The first stage of wakefulness lasted maybe 20 minutes. He would lie there in confusion, trying to retrace his steps into slumber, but an idea — tenacious and barbed as a fishhook — would lodge itself in the soft tissue of his mind and begin to throb. Maybe it would be a voice saying, “You are a coward. You’ll never be an X-Man and everyone knows it.” or lately, “I’m lying to John. He thinks I’m like him. He thinks we’re something that we’re not.” 

These period of dazed misery would end once he was finally, fully awake. At that point, there was nothing to do but suck it up and use the time constructively. 

He climbed carefully out of bed and pulled on his t-shirt. He was surprised to find himself in his boxers. Hadn’t he and John fooled around before falling asleep? No, that was the night before. Last night, Bobby had dropped off while John was revising a poem, alternately cursing under his breath and furiously typing. 

Bobby looked down at his friend. Because of their thermal powers, neither of them had need of a blanket, so it was not unusual for Bobby to watch the shifts and rhythms of John’s naked, sleeping form. He was an active sleeper, turning often, muttering. Now, he was on his front, ankles crossed, one arm under his head. Bobby’s eyes skipped down the line of vertebrae and then roamed over the twins cushions of his ass. John rolled over with a grunt and Bobby felt a pang as his sleeping roommate’s erection was revealed in the half-light. 

He felt his own hard-on growing as he contemplated an oral assault on sleeping beauty’s tower. John often liked being woken with an unscheduled blowjob, but sometimes he snapped testily that he wanted to sleep, called Bobby a cocksucking addict, and rolled away. Bobby didn’t feel like taking the chance, so he turned on his desk light and sat down to read through the latest draft of the school’s new refugee plan. 

Last week, Scott had called him and Kitty into a meeting and asked them to contribute to plans for welcoming new students to the school. Specifically, it was a plan for mutants on the run: kids escaping from trouble or abuse for whom the School for Gifted Youngsters would be a mutant sanctuary. 

It was strange to be working with Kitty again. Although they were still more cordial than friendly with each other, Bobby hoped they could rekindle the friendship that Lance’s departure had all but extinguished. According to the plans, Bobby and Kitty would act as peer support for arriving male and female students respectively, helping them get settled at the school. He and Kitty would also keep an eye out for emotional or physical issues that the new arrival might have and report to Dr. Grey and Professor Xavier if necessary. 

Bobby put down the stapled pages and imagined what kind of terrors these kids might be escaping from. Anti-mutant gangs? Violent parents? He wondered if he’d be of any use at all to a truly traumatized student. He’d find out soon enough. The X-Men were scrambling more often to rescue mutants in trouble, and it was only a matter of time before they brought one home with them. 

Bobby checked the time. 2:45 a.m. Was he sleepy yet? No, he wasn’t. 

His eye fell on the Drake family portrait stuck to the corkboard over his desk. It seemed like yesterday when they had gone to the mall to have it taken, but he looked like such a kid in it, so it must have been a couple of years. And Ronny was tiny! A wave of anxiety passed through him. In just a few weeks, he would join his parents and his little brother for a Christmas ski weekend. His emotions were decidedly mixed. He definitely wanted to smooth things out with Ronny, who had avoided talking to him since he left for school the previous summer. But how could you explain to a 13 year old that everything’s not always about him? 

Bobby looked at the picture again, the smiling faces, the unselfconscious contact. They all seemed so happy. He knew that relations with his family were a lot more complicated because of the secrets he was keeping. How could he say anything about his life at school without using the word “mutant”? He was the only student who was not out to his family about his powers, and while everyone seemed supportive of his decision to keep his parents in the dark, Bobby had to wonder if they didn’t think him a bit of a fool. Or a coward. 

If only his parents could meet everyone, see them use their powers! Surely they would be impressed and they could love him for who he was if they could see Kitty phasing, or Sam flying, or John manipulating fire like… 

Bobby’s heart pounded. _No_. He didn’t want his parents to meet John. That wasn’t possible. Not going to happen. 

He got to his feet and pulled on his Jeans as quietly as he could. He needed… something… Ice cream! He slipped from the room like a spy, padding down the hallway in bare feet. No, it was better this way. People didn’t need to know everything. _I can handle this myself_ , he thought. _I can straighten out my own life._

As he descended the stairs, hidden sensors followed his path, turning lights on and off. Down in the foyer, he could hear the sound of the television in the rec room, cycling through hundreds of channels as Jones kept his nightly vigil. Bobby thought about joining him, but Jones wasn’t much company when all the media of the world were flashing before his eyes. 

Bobby turned in the direction of the kitchen and froze. There was a red light blinking on the security panel that he and Forge had installed by the front door. His mind raced and he glanced left and right down the dark corridors, wondering if someone had broken in. Magneto? Or the blue chick, Mystique! Just the thought of her walking the halls of the mansion sent chills down his spine. He moved quietly to the panel to check which light was on. The front gate. It was then that he felt the cold gust of air and realized the front door was ajar. 

Remembering his training, he adopted a defensive posture and raised his hands, ready to shoot ice. He was shaking. The door swung open. He whimpered. 

“Bobby,” Scott said, coming through the door with snow on his shoulders. “What are you doing?” 

“I thought… I mean, I saw the security light and the door was open, so I…” He paused as a girl came through the door. Chinese, wearing a dilapidated overcoat that seemed oddly familiar. She was joined a moment later by a punk rocker who looked decidedly shaky on his feet. He had been beaten pretty badly by the look of it, and Bobby realized that the first refugees were arriving. He pulled himself together and prepared for his role as designated peer. 

Scott went back to give the injured boy a hand, helping him move to one of the chairs at the side of the foyer. The girl squatted down nervously beside him. Bobby composed a sympathetic and friendly face and moved towards them. 

“Hi,” he said. “I’m —” 

“Bobby?” said the punk boy, and Bobby’s brain did a frontside 360 and a face plant. 

“Mike? What the hell…? That isn’t you… is it?” 

The half-closed front door flew open, and Paul Greenstein stumbled in, rocking from foot to foot in agitation. 

“Hey, Drake, how’s it hanging? Where’s the can, dude? I gotta take a giant dump!” 

“Third door on the left,” Bobby replied automatically and watched with amazement as this unlikely phantom from his past scurried heavily down the hall. 

Jean came down the stairs in that moment, dressed in sweats, her hair tied in the back with an elastic. She was carrying her small examination bag. Behind her was Kitty, looking groggy, dressed in jeans and sweater. Kitty came to stand by him while Jean went down on one knee next to Jubilee. “I’m Dr. Grey. I’m going to take a quick look at you, okay? What are your names?” 

“That’s Mike,” Bobby mumbled, stupefied. “He doesn’t usually look like that.” It was then he realized that the girl’s coat, which stunk pretty thoroughly of weed, belonged to Greenstein. 

“I’m Jubilee,” she was saying. “Don’t worry about me, but Mike’s in a lot of pain and he’s feeling dizzy.” 

“But you’re okay?” Jean asked her. 

“Well, I have a little burn on my arm where the taser hit me. Um, and a death threat from Friends of Humanity. And I can’t go home again ever, and they almost killed my boyfriend, but yeah… Nothing too serious.” 

Everyone looked shocked except Mike who laughed and then grabbed his side, wincing in pain. 

Jubilee moved to help him, but Kitty put a hand on her shoulder. “Hi, I’m Kitty. Let’s step back and give Dr. Grey some room. Don’t worry, she’s a really great doctor.” 

Jubilee let herself be moved as Jean opened Mike’s jacket to touch his side. She then scrutinized his puffed up face. “Okay, Mike, Mr. Summers and I are going take you down to the med lab. You’ll be okay,” she said in that way that always made everyone feel safe. 

Bobby blurted out, “And we’ll find out who did this to you!” 

Mike looked up at his friend, his face pale. “Oh, God, Bobby. I swear you mean my hair, not my injuries.” 

“No! Well, maybe.” 

Mike started laughing again, holding his side. 

“Maybe you want to cut back on the laughter,” Scott suggested. 

“I know,” Mike replied, coughing a bit, “but, Bobby, you’re kind of hilarious when you’re totally confused.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike’s tattoo is Bad Religion again. Yes, they're my favorite punk band. Personally, I have nothing against the Decemberists. Thanks to the commenters who told me about glue gel and the anonymous commenter who gave me the title for the chapter. Next: we return to the main pairing, honest!


	22. In flagrante delicto

Part 1: The Last Days of Fall 

“Shh, quiet, quiet!” Bobby hissed, but was he saying it to St. John or to himself? After all, he was the one moaning as John licked his nipples. Bobby bit down on the t-shirt that had gotten stuck halfway through the process of being pulled violently off him. 

“Oh, God, yeah…” he further opined. He was on his feet, but John’s weight was against him, pushing him back against a pile of crisp white sheets, stacked neatly in a shelving unit that was digging into his back. The second floor linen closet wasn’t the first spot Bobby would have chosen for a round of fast, hungry sex, but they had a guest staying in their dorm. Besides, how could Bobby complain; it was his idea that they try to get off four times in one day. 

John kicked Bobby’s feet further apart and, stepping between them, pressed their crotches together. He moved his mouth from Bobby’s nipple to his jaw, which he kissed and bit. “You taste like Thanksgiving pie and fresh mown lawns, suburb boy,” John said into his ear as he pulled the t-shirt right off him. “I want to kick over the warning sign and walk on the grass.” He pulled off his own shirt, their hot and cold torsos colliding ecstatically. “I want to cum on the first slice of pie.” 

Bobby grabbed John’s head and brought their lips together. It felt like nitrogen meeting glycerin in dark alley. Suddenly, he had had enough of being the passive partner. He pushed John off him, just enough so he could drop to his knees. His nose got nicked by John’s belt buckle on the way down, and then he was smelling denim, feeling the long hump of erection, pushed sideways under the material. Even the flare of the head was visible because the boy wore no underwear. 

It took Bobby no time to free the penis and swallow it whole. It was true what John said: he _was_ a cocksucking addict. Feeling John in his mouth, tasting him, the battle to keep the horny boy from choking him at the same time as he tried to swallow every inch — nothing made him feel more alive. Which was existentially disturbing. So he disengaged his conscious brain and became a creature of instinct and sensation. 

Dick, heat, cold, his own penis free in the air, stroking it with an icy palm, John swearing and pulling out, pushing Bobby’s head aside, and coming over his shoulder. Bobby heard the flat “splat” behind him, the last of the ejaculation falling on his shoulder, dripping down his back. 

“What the fuck…?” Bobby said as John, panting and swearing still, pulled him up and spun him around to face the shelf. Bobby saw John’s spunk sprayed across a stack of clean sheets, pearl on white. “John, why did you…?” But John was on his knees behind him, pulling his ass cheeks apart, sticking his tongue between them to lick Bobby’s hole. Bobby’s conscious mind went AWOL again, and he resumed his desperate, icy wank, gripping the shelf’s uprights for support with his free hand. 

“Shoot it, Bobby,” John was saying in between assaults on his hole. “Same place. Cum on my cum, yeah, fucking do it. Fuck…” And Bobby shot forcefully, further corrupting the clean innocence of the fresh sheet. He looked at the splatter pattern: two insatiable serpents coiled together in Eden. He felt like he was going to faint. He squeezed the shelf hard until his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal. John slid up his back like a python, and Bobby could feel the half-hard penis — unnaturally hot and still damp — slide between his spit-slick cheeks. John kissed his neck and Bobby got goose bumps. “Slut,” John said into his ear. He could hear the triumphant smile in the husky voice. 

They stayed like that for a silent minute before John disengaged with a sticky pull. Bobby turned and watched him wipe himself with a fresh towel from another shelf. 

“Put that in the hamper when you’re done,” Bobby said and grabbed himself a fresh towel from the shelf as John disposed of his. Bobby wiped the cum from his penis, hands and shoulder and then bent to wipe the water stains on the floor where his ice had melted. He suddenly didn’t want to be there, in this claustrophobic space with John and the evidence of their lust. 

“Hey, check this out,” John said above him, and Bobby stood up. John was looking at their handiwork on the sheet. “Let’s just cover it up with some more sheets and let someone find it!” 

“That’s disgusting!” Bobby snapped and moved to pick up the soiled linen. 

John stopped him. “No! It’s awesome; like we left our secret graffiti behind. The sign of our illicit love!” 

“Yeah, I’m sure whoever has to clean it will be really impressed.” Bobby pushed him aside and peeled the sheet off the pile, checking to see if it had soaked through to the next. He wadded it tightly into a ball with the sticky stains buried in the core, and shoved it deep into the hamper. He slammed the lid and sat on it, not looking John in the eye. 

“Why are you always such a prick after we fuck?” John asked. 

“We didn’t fuck.” 

“You know what I mean,” John said and he was suddenly there, putting his arms around Bobby, kissing his forehead. “Listen, asshole, I really love having sex with you. It’s the best I’ve ever had.” 

Bobby sighed and flattened his head against John’s chest. Why _was_ he being such a fucktard? He asked, “You doing anything now? Want to come down to the pond with me and see how thick the ice is?” 

“I’m going to study physics,” John replied and Bobby looked up at him. 

“When did you become such a serious student?” 

“Since Xavier said I could join you guys in the senior physics seminar.” Bobby was impressed and amazed at how well John was doing at school, but somehow even this didn’t cheer him up. John looked him in the eye. “Maybe today isn’t the day to go for the record. Four times… that’s a lot of fucking.” 

“Maybe.” 

“Of course, now that I mention fucking, I’m feeling this itch in my ass…” 

“Stop it,” Bobby said, though his dick stirred again. 

“It’s been a few weeks since we tried that…” 

“Yeah.” 

“But of course, we need a more romantic setting than the linen closet…” 

“I might have an idea. But it’ll be late tonight, okay?” 

John smiled. “That’s my Bobby! The engineer who makes his dick’s dreams come true!” He kissed Bobby quickly on the lips and moved to the door. “I’ll go out first and make sure the coast is clear.” John stuck his head into the hall, turned back to wink at Bobby, and then slipped out, closing the door gingerly behind him. 

Bobby sat there alone feeling both elated and defeated. Sometimes it seemed he had everything he wanted in life, except control of it. He stayed for a minute so they wouldn’t be seen leaving together. He noticed John’s physics textbook on one of the shelves. _So much for the serious student,_ he thought. He tucked it under his arm, turned out the light and exited into the hallway. 

Maybe he would go check the pond himself. The other students were excited about skating, and Bobby had found he could “read” the ice, report on its structural integrity. He was only beginning to realize how beautiful ice was, how intricate and lovely in its crystalline perfection. _This must be how John feels about fire_ , he thought. 

He turned the corner and came face to face with Mike. 

“Bobby!” his friend said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” 

Bobby still couldn’t help staring at Mike in surprise even though he had already been at the mansion for two days. It was strange enough that part of his life in Boston had followed him to Westchester; but it nothing short of brain-frying that in less than a year since his departure, Mike had become a punk, a mutant-rights activist, and now was now hiding out at the School for Gifted Youngsters. 

“I was, um, just… around,” Bobby said. “Doing stuff.” 

Mike was plainly uninterested in Bobby’s stammering. He looked towards the stairs nervously. “Well, my parents just got here like ten minutes ago.” 

“Oh, man, are they angry? Freaking out?” 

“I don’t know! I haven’t had the nerve to go down yet. You have to come with me!” 

“What?! But what do I have to do with —” 

Mike grabbed his arm and started moving them down the staircase. “Just be with me. Come into the meeting with Xavier.” 

Bobby pulled them to a halt. “What are you talking about? I can’t come into a private family meeting! What am I supposed to say?!” He stared at Mike. The boy’s left eye was covered in bandages from his assault, and he was walking with a cane. Jubilee — who Bobby found kind of intimidating — had cut the spikes from Mike’s head, but he still had a Mohawk, if a short one. 

Mike’s uncovered eye was wild and frightened. “Nothing, I don’t know. But… If you’re not there, they’ll make me go back.” 

Bobby’s heart felt the tug of his friend’s desperation. “But you have to go back, Mike. You’re not even a mutant. What would you do here at —?” 

“Please, you have to help. My folks like you, and Xavier trusts you! Besides, I was the one who got you to New York, remember?” 

Bobby realized he had no way out now. It was Mike who had helped Bobby get to the mutant youth meeting in New York the previous spring. There he’d met Scott and the Professor and his new life had begun. “Okay,” he said, making his best attempt at a confident smile. “Let’s go.” 

They passed through the foyer and were heading towards Xavier’s office when Mike stopped short. He pulled Bobby over to the wall, hiding them ineffectively behind a potted palm. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “It’s Doctor Aziz!” Bobby looked down the hall. Mr. and Mrs. Haddad were standing with Scott and Xavier, and beside them was a tall Arab man in a somber suit. He was in his late 50s, older than Mike’s parents, a corpulent and dignified man whose full head of hair and bristly moustache were studies in sharply contrasting blacks and whites. He seemed to be the focal point of the discussion, as if he were the one who had called this gathering together. 

“Who is he?” Bobby asked. 

“He’s our family doctor. But he’s more than that — he’s like my parents’ hero and my unofficial uncle. He’s this big deal in the Lebanese community. He knew my parents when they were kids, and they all came to America around the same time.” Mike looked even more intimidated by the man than he had been about seeing his parents. “My parents always got his advice on everything, including whether I should be in soccer league when I was seven. I can’t believe he came all the way here with them!” 

At that moment, Mrs. Haddad turned and saw her son. “Michael!” she cried out and came running down the hall. She threw her arms around him and then pulled back, looking at his bandaged face, tears in her eyes. “Oh, my darling boy, what did they do to you?” 

Mike looked startled. “Hi, I’m okay.” 

She began dragging him down the hall. Bobby thought he might slip away, but Mike grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Bobby stood by uncomfortably as Mike was all but engulfed in his father’s embrace. “Oh, Michael,” Mr. Haddad said, shaking his head sadly. “What have you gotten yourself involved in?” 

Dani and Terry came around the corner at that moment and stared. Bobby gave them a look and Dani turned her head away and pulled Terry — who was gawking at the scene like she was watching the smoking remains of a car accident — after her. 

Doctor Aziz stepped forward to shake Mike’s hand, and the Haddads backed away to give the man room. Mike wasn’t short, but he seemed somehow to shrink in the presence of the doctor. “Michael, it is good to see you. We were all terribly worried.” 

“I know, sir, I didn’t mean to scare anyone. I-I just needed to get away quickly.” 

“I spoke with the doctor here, and she forwarded her report and the x-rays to me. I am satisfied she is taking good care of you.” 

“Yes sir,” Mike said quietly. “She is.” 

The Professor had wheeled himself into the office while Scott remained in the hall, standing a few discreet paces away from the family reunion. After a minute, he said, “Perhaps we should all go talk in Professor Xavier’s office now.” He indicated the door. 

Bobby was pretty sure Scott would tell him to stay out, and that suited him fine, but then Mike spoke up: “Doctor Aziz, this is my friend, Bobby. My parents know him from Boston.” 

Bobby felt the penetrating light of the doctor’s gaze fall on him. “Ah yes. We were discussing you, Bobby. So, you are a mutant.” 

Bobby looked over at Scott, but his teacher just shrugged. “Yes, sir. I am.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” the doctor nodded, as if coming to a conclusion about Bobby’s place in the universe. “You will please join us in this meeting.” 

Bobby cursed his fate as he and Mike followed the adults into the office. Just before they sat down, Bobby smacked Mike on the shoulder and pointed down. Mike’s rolled up sleeve was revealing the lower half of his tattoo. He quickly covered it and did up the cuff button. 

The boys were soon seated between Scott and Mrs. Haddad, across from Mr. Haddad, Doctor Aziz and the Professor, behind his desk. Xavier laced his fingers together and smiled. He greeted his guests and they began to chat about all kinds of trivia like the route they had driven from Boston, as if they were afraid to get to the business at hand. 

Bobby’s mind wandered off. Four times in one day. It was ambitious but totally doable. It had started that morning when he and John had gotten their room to themselves for ten minutes. Bobby wouldn’t have thought it would be so tense, losing his nightly access to John’s body for a couple of days, but it had been driving him insane. 

It totally made sense for Mike to bunk in with them temporarily, and Bobby didn’t resent it at all. Mike had been having panic attacks since his assault, especially at night, and having an old friend there to talk him through the terrors helped. But Mike was stationed on a futon halfway between him and John, and it might as well have been a Grand Canyon or a Berlin Wall that separated the lovers. 

Bobby wasn’t even sure whose idea it had been that morning. Mike left to take a shower (a “long, hot shower” he had said) and within seconds, John and Bobby had been naked on John’s bed (so it was probably Bobby’s idea), dicks rubbing together, lips tangled, hands flying over flesh like combines in a wheat field. They had wiped up only seconds before Mike returned. 

“Yes, the weather can be very unpredictable at this time of year,” Mrs. Haddad was saying as Bobby picked up John’s physics book from the floor and placed it discreetly on his lap to cover his erection. 

The second time had definitely been John’s idea. He and Bobby had been on cleanup crew for the regular Saturday morning pancake and crepe extravaganza. Margit had sent them to the storeroom for some more dishwasher soap and a new can of cooking oil. John had run ahead of Bobby, and he’d been naked in the storeroom by the time Bobby arrived. It was after that episode that Bobby had proposed going for the record. 

Bobby snapped out of his reverie when he heard Xavier’s tone change. “We are, of course, very concerned not only with Michael’s health and well being, but with the horrendous events that took place in your city a few nights ago.” 

Mrs. Haddad spoke up and, after her tearful appearance in the hall, Bobby was surprised by the amount of anger she displayed. “Professor, the ‘events’ — as you call them — were indeed horrendous. My son should have had no part in them! We have told him we do not condone his political activities on behalf of the mutants.” 

The Professor nodded sympathetically. “I agree. No one Michael’s age should be exposed to that kind of danger. But I do not believe Michael would have involved himself if he had known the outcome, either for himself or for his friend, Ms. Lee.” 

Aziz cleared his throat. “This girlfriend of yours, she is also a mutant, Michael?” 

Scott said, “I’m sorry, sir, but anonymity is a mutant’s first line of defense. We really can’t discuss such matters without —” 

“Yes, she’s a mutant.” Mike said flatly. “Why does that matter?” 

Mr. Haddad clucked his tongue. “It matters greatly. Look how different you’ve become! These friends of yours have gotten you involved with very dangerous people. These friends — I’m sorry, Bobby — they are using you.” 

“Mr. Haddad,” Scott said and Bobby recognized the anger just below the surface. “It does not help the situation if you go making accusations —” 

“How do you know _I’m_ not a mutant?” Mike interrupted and the room fell silent. Bobby watched the Haddads looking at each other in panic before they turned, as if for divine intervention, to Doctor Aziz who was staring inscrutably at their son. All eyes turned back to Mike. “I mean, maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so _different_. But you didn’t even think about that possibility, did you?” 

Mrs. Haddad’s face had paled. “Michael, you aren’t… You can’t be…” 

Mike looked up at her defiantly and let the silence stretch. 

“Michael…” Xavier prompted. 

“No, I’m not,” Mike said and the three guests seemed to shrink in their seats as if a puppeteer had been holding them suspended. “But what if I was? Professor Xavier phoned Jubilee’s aunt yesterday, and she disowned her. Same with her other relatives. Is that what you would do to me? Bobby’s scared to even tell his parents he’s a mutant!” He looked over at Bobby and mumbled, “Sorry.” 

“S’okay,” Bobby answered quietly. 

Mrs. Haddad sighed. She sounded tired of the whole affair. “That’s all very sad, Michael, but what more can you do for them? Mutants have dangerous enemies like those terrorists who attacked you. You have your own life to lead; you can’t take on their trouble as well.” 

Mr. Haddad leaned across his wife and put a hand on his son’s knee. “Michael, you are big-hearted boy. You tried to help… and you did help! You brought Jubilee here to her kind. Now come home with us and we will put the sad story behind us.” 

Michael shifted his knee away angrily. He wrapped his arms around himself and scowled at the floor. 

Doctor Aziz cleared his throat again. “Michael, please look at me. What is it you want?” 

Mike looked up at Aziz defiantly, his lip jutted forward. “I want to stay here. I want to go to school here and stay with Jubilee and Bobby. I want to help mutants fight for their rights.” 

Another silence stretched across the room. Bobby looked at Xavier, wondering why he didn’t speak up. He must have _thought_ the question more loudly than he realized because the Professor answered in his head: 

_*Sometimes you have to leave people time to listen to their feelings, Robert. If you interrupt right away, they may lose those insights. Ask St. John what I have taught him about silence.*_

It was Scott who spoke first. “Mike, that’s really great that you like our school, but our enrollment is by invitation.” 

“Or if the student’s in trouble because of anti-mutant hatred!” Mike answered him, and he reminded Bobby of a lawyer on TV. Mike’s open eye suddenly seemed to moisten, but his voice was strong. “Well, I was attacked by Friends of Humanity. They said they’d kill me and my parents if I cross them.” 

Mr. Haddad sounded angry for the first time. “We will not let anyone kill us, Michael. You have to come home to Boston and get on with your life. You have to go back to school.” He turned to the Professor. “There is rule of law in this country. If we need protection, we will get it from the authorities.” 

Mike jumped to his feet. His voice rose higher. “Didn’t you hear what I told you?! They said they’d kill us! The police don’t care what happens to mutants! And these are crazy people! They… they’re not scared to… do anything… They kicked me, beat me! They pointed a gun at me and…” his voice was engulfed as if by a wave. His hands dropped to his side and tears were suddenly pouring down his face. He stood frozen, shaking, while everyone looked on dumbstruck. 

Xavier’s voice was calm. “Michael, we are all listening to you and we all want to find the best solution. Please sit down.” Xavier nodded to Bobby who was as shocked as the Haddads by the outburst. He got to his feet and put a careful hand on Mike’s shoulder. 

“Hey, buddy, let’s sit down, okay?” he said quietly and Mike obeyed. He sat in the chair and covered his face with his hands. 

Xavier turned to Aziz and the Haddads. “We are monitoring Michael for signs of post-traumatic stress. The effects of an attack such as he experienced can be unpredictable. Doctor Grey and I believe it would be advisable for him to stay here at least a few more days.” 

Mrs. Haddad dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “The police… they want to interview Michael about the events at the school, and about his earlier meeting with the villains who did this to him.” 

Scott said, “With your permission, we can get in touch with the police, and they can talk to Mike on the phone, or perhaps they would be willing to come here to interview him.” 

Mr. Haddad had been shaking his head since Mike started crying. He seemed bewildered. “And what… Excuse me, Professor Xavier, but if Michael were able to become a student here… what would happen to his studies? He wishes to become a doctor.” 

Mike raised a tear-stained face. “I don’t want to be a doctor! I want to fight for justice.” His voice was cracking as he cried and he stamped his foot in frustration. 

Scott said, “Bobby, maybe you could take Mike back to your room to lie down.” 

Mike looked at his parents. “Mom? Dad? I —” 

“Go, Michael,” Mr. Haddad said with a tired smile. “We will talk to you before we leave. Go rest, son.” 

Mike headed obediently for the door, and Bobby hovered just behind him, giving him a kind of supervised independence. Bobby looked back at the Haddads and gave a little nod. Mrs. Haddad was watching him strangely. Did she blame him for all this? Or was she just seeing him in a new light? Not the same Bobby Drake she had served soda and snacks to when he came over to study after school. He was something different to her now that she knew he was a mutant. He turned quickly and followed Mike, closing the door behind him, relishing the cool of the hall after the stuffy room full of tensions and accusations. 

It seemed odd, putting his friend to bed like a little kid, but Mike lay down more than willingly. It was as if the energy had drained out of him after his emotional meltdown, which must have been kind of humiliating in front of his parents and everyone. Bobby stayed until Mike fell asleep. He then got up quietly and slipped from the room, remembering to take John’s textbook. 

He found his roommate in the library with Jubilee, Peter and Dani. The air was warm and sweet with the smell of the wood fire burning in the fireplace. Few students found any of the dusty tomes of the Xavier family library much use, but John was a bit obsessed with the room. When Bobby entered, he was walking along the rows of books, running a finger across the spines as he read the titles. Peter sat on a red leather couch, drawing in his sketchbook with charcoal while Jubilee and Dani, standing side-by-side on the worn Turkish rug, practiced _Krav Maga_ kicks. 

“Good, but keep the knee up,” Dani said. 

“Yah!” Jubilee shouted as she tried again. “That feels so fucking good. Hey, Bobby, I’m learning self-defense! No one’s going to kick my ass ever again. Where’s Mike? _Yah!_ ” 

She kicked an invisible opponent in the nuts, and Bobby gave her a wide berth as he headed for the far end of Peter’s couch. “Mike’s lying down in our room.” 

“Do you have my physics text?” John asked without turning. He pulled a dusty volume off the shelf, took a look inside and put it back in place. 

“Yeah, I got it. 

“I thought Mike’s parents had arrived,” Peter said. 

Jubilee said, “They did. That’s why I’m hiding up here. I’m not their favorite person these days.” She turned to Bobby. “What’s happening with my guy? Why is he lying down?” 

“He had another panic attack.” 

“I’m not surprised after what happened to him,” Dani said. “To both of you.” 

Jubilee seemed ready to leave. “Maybe I should —” 

“Better let him sleep,” Bobby told her. “The Professor says it’s good for him.” 

“He’s sleeping all the time,” she complained. “I want to be with him.” 

John stretched out, ass up on the carpet and opened his physics text. “Yeah, he’s been napping like _four times in one day_ ,” he said, with the smallest wiggle of his ass. Bobby blushed at the secret message. 

Jubilee crouched in front of Bobby. “So, are they going to let him stay a few days? That’s what Doctor Grey said she wanted. They’re not taking him home today, are they?” 

“He asked if he could stay _permanently_ ,” Bobby said with quiet importance and everyone’s eyes filled with surprise. 

Dani frowned. “The Professor wouldn’t allow that, would he? I mean, no offense or anything, Jubilee, but he’s not a mutant.” 

“Yeah? Well you should see what he’s _done_ for mutants! He totally deserves —” Her cell phone rang. “Hello? Rayen, where have you been?! I’ve been calling and calling! Really? They interviewed you at home or at the station?” She looked up at the curious faces. “That’s my friend; she’s a mutant at our school. The police questioned her about the dance. No, just say you don’t know _where_ we went. Listen, I have to ask you something. Mike’s tattoo… it’s not fading. No, not even a little. Really? Shit. Honey, don’t freak, you’ll be fine without us. I’ll come and visit, I totally promise. I love you. Bye.” 

Jubilee hung up and sank to the floor, her head hanging low. Dani came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” 

“Mike will be so pissed. Rayen’s never done a tattoo on a flatscan — I mean a non-mutant — before. She thinks maybe it won’t fade, after all.” She gave a sad laugh. “Whatever, I think it looks hot.” She regarded her phone in its yellow and black bumblebee skin. “I wonder how much longer this will work. Maybe Auntie Bao will forget until she gets the bill. Heh. Then that’s it. Gone, like all my stuff. My clothes, my mp3s, my diary and all my poems.” John nodded sympathetically at that. 

Peter said, “You went shopping with Kitty this morning, didn’t you? The school bought you what you need?” 

Jubilee looked a bit embarrassed. “Yeah, that was really nice. But it was weird; like I kept wanting to say it’s not necessary. Part of me still can’t believe I’m not going home, not going to school on Monday or anything. I mean, my Aunt was a bit of a bitch sometimes, but I guess I never really believed she’d… throw me away like I’m some fucking garbage.” Her eyes grew moist. “Hey, Dani, let’s practice. C’mon!” She wiped her eyes and got to her feet. Dani stood, too, straightening out her sweater and dropping into her defensive stance. 

“Yah!” Jubilee shouted. She relaxed her posture again. “Hey, guys, how hard core are they about the curfew rules? Seriously, I can’t be with Mike after ten?” 

John closed his text. “If you’re not too obvious, you can get away with it. Do you want us to give you an hour or two in our room? We could clear out.” 

Jubilee sighed with relief. “Really? You’d do that?” She looked at Bobby. “Where will you guys go?” 

Bobby felt the blush return and looked away. 

John smiled. “Don’t worry, we’ll think of something to do.” 

 

At 9:45 that night, Bobby and John slipped out the back door of the mansion carrying their supplies. Having helped Forge with the installation, Bobby knew how to reset the security monitors on the door so their records would show no one going in or out that night. 

“So, as long as I don’t forget when we come back…” 

“I feel safer already,” John said. “I wonder how cold it is.” 

“Minus six, Celsius.” He grinned. “Impressive, huh? Jean figured out that I can feel the temperature, as long as it’s below freezing.” 

“We should call you ‘Mr. Mercury’ instead of ‘Iceman.’ Wow, look at the stars, it’s a perfect night.” They stood side by side in the snow, taking in the spectacle. John leaned over and kissed Bobby on the cheek. 

“Not here, John! Wait until we’re in the woods.” 

“You’re an idiot. Take my hand at least.” Bobby did, smiling shyly. 

“Come on!” Bobby led them down the path, running, holding hands. They wore winter boots but no coats, as the cold didn’t affect them. Bobby, wearing a blue t-shirt, balanced a big bundle on one shoulder. John, who wore an unbuttoned red flannel over his black t-shirt, carried a backpack. They veered off the shoveled path, and the going got slower, the snowdrifts coming up to their knees in places. 

The night was clear and still, the only sound, the crunching of their feet. At the tree line, they peered into the darkness of the woods, and John reached into his jeans for his lighter. 

“Hold it,” Bobby whispered. “Look!” 

Someone else was running away from the mansion as they had, intermittently visible in the garden lights. The boys hastily retreated into the trees, peering out from behind a large spruce. 

“Shit,” John hissed, more annoyed than scared. “Did they see us leaving or what?” 

“Whoever it is, they’re not following our trail. Maybe it’s not about us. Shhh.” 

The moonlight hit the figure. She was in a winter jacket with the fur-trimmed hood over her head. Under it, she wore a dress that came down to her knees. Even before she pulled off the hood, Bobby knew it was Rahne. She was standing maybe 30 feet from them. Bobby thought she seemed more nervous than he was, looking back at the mansion, peering into the shadows. She took her rosary out of her pocket and kissed the crucifix. 

“Holy shit,” John muttered as they watched her remove the jacket and then the dress, hanging them carefully from the branch of a tree. She stood naked, shivering in the moonlight, looking miserable. She was clearly in distress, and Bobby was tempted to go to her, offer comfort. _Oh, God,_ he thought, _Is this suicide? Is she going to let herself freeze to death?_

But then she transformed into a wolf. And not into one of her scary half-forms, like a horror movie werewolf, but completely. The alteration, unnerving as always, was complete in just a few seconds. 

She snuffled and pawed at the snow, her bushy tail flicking with excitement. Then she froze. She raised her head and pricked up her ears in the direction of the boys. John, much to Bobby’s surprise, grabbed his upper arm painfully and whimpered. The wolf sniffed the air for several seconds and then yelped, jumping in the air and running away from them into the woods as fast as she could. 

All was silent except for the sound of John’s panting breaths. 

“Oh, man,” John said shakily. “That wasn’t half freaky. I thought she never changed anymore. No more devil beast for heaven girl.” 

“You know how it is if you don’t use your powers. You start to feel sick after a while. I bet she does this sometimes, secretly, where no one can see her. Poor Rahne.” 

He heard John flick his lighter, and then the trees around them were illuminated by a fireball that John suspended just in front of them as a torch. “Shall we?” he asked, and together they walked into the forest, along a path that was just discernable beneath the snow. 

After about ten minutes, they came to a covered shelter, like a hut without walls. It was used by the groundskeeper to protect gear from the rain in the summer, but it was empty now except for a neat pile of logs. 

“There’s a fire pit under here somewhere,” John said, clearing the snow with his hands. “This is where I hung out the night I emailed my poem to everyone. Here it is.” 

He grabbed two logs from under the shelter and put them in the pit. John gestured at the floating fire ball, and it crashed into the pit like a meteor, igniting the cold wood in seconds. Bobby, who had lit campfires slowly and carefully in Boy Scouts, thought this was awesome. 

Bobby untied the bundle he had carried in and soon had a tarp and blanket laid out on the ground in front of the roaring blaze. John reached into the bag and brought out two cans of soda. 

“I hope they’re not frozen,” he said. 

“They’re not,” Bobby answered without touching them. 

“I’ve got chips, too,” John said. “Chocolate, condoms, lube. Let’s get comfortable.” He stood and began stripping. Bobby sat on the tarp and enjoyed the show. Evidently John liked to be watched because he was already erect as he eased his briefs down. Bobby watched the flickering flames draw moving patterns on his white skin. 

“Now you,” John said and Bobby stood. He felt suddenly shy, undressing for his friend’s hungry eyes. With his boots off, one of his feet landed in the snow, and the song of winter-freeze sang loudly inside him. He loved to feel the dance of molecules when water solidified; it reminded him of the thrilling ease of Rahne’s transformation to wolf form. 

He wasn’t shy anymore. He was naked in the woods with his lover and everything else in his life was far away. The stars were visible through the tops of the pine trees, and the fire crackled as their lips met. The meeting of flesh, too, was undeniably right, better than in their dorm room, even. Bobby realized that he held back some part of himself when they did it in the mansion. Was he scared they’d get caught? Maybe he just didn’t know how to be this sensuous boy in the place where he was supposed to be… something else. Someone named Bobby, who was _good_. 

“It’s good,” John moaned as Bobby fingered him, and then Bobby was on his back, the cold earth beneath him, the flames cracking and roaring to his left as John straddled him, slowly taking him in, hands heavy on his shoulders. They moved together, kissing, swearing, making the night their own. 

John’s face was close to Bobby’s, staring into his eyes as Bobby came into the condom in the impossibly hot ass, almost sobbing with the intensity. John arched backwards as his own orgasm shook him, raising his face to the sky, his mouth a silent, ecstatic: 

O. 

In the distance, the wolf howled. 

 

Bobby was quiet as they returned to the mansion. As they approached the door, he felt the weight of the place descend on him with its history, its unknown future, its plans for him. They slipped inside quietly, and his shoulders tensed up. He was rehearsing their quiet ascent to their room, rehearsing what he would say if they were caught. 

“Hey,” John whispered. “The security system.” 

Bobby cursed himself. How had he forgotten? He hurried over to the wall and concentrated on the panel, pressing a complex combination of buttons until the word “reset” appeared on the display. 

They headed towards the back stairs. As they passed the office, the light suddenly snapped on. Bobby thought his heart would stop. 

“Hey, guys,” said Jones who was sitting in front of a monitor in the room. 

Jones again! Bobby found himself about to spill a lame string of excuses, and was glad when John spoke up. “Hey, kid. Why aren’t you in the rec room watching TV?” 

“I dunno, just felt like watching this instead.” 

Bobby followed John in, squinting at the small screen. It showed the garage, three X vehicles visible in the half-light. 

“Check it out,” Jones said and began blinking. With each blink, another view of school from another security camera, either inside the mansion or on the grounds. Empty classrooms, the Blackbird, the basketball court, the empty cafeteria. “Hello,” Jones said with pleasure and held on a view of the back field — Rahne sneaking back from the woods, dressed and mostly human, but with lupine legs. As she reached the garden, she became fully human and pulled her hood up. 

Bobby bit his lower lip and stared intently at the owlish boy. “Jones, let’s respect her privacy, okay? No one needs to know she was out.” 

Jones giggled and blinked. John tugged Bobby’s sleeve. Bobby turned, and on the screen was the clearing in the woods where they had just been, the embers in the fire pit still smoldering. Bobby stared at the image, heart pounding, as Jones slid off the stool and headed for the door. 

“I’m going to watch TV now,” he said. “Good night.” 

“Jones!” Bobby yelled after him but the boy kept walking. 

“Bobby, shut the fuck up,” John said, grabbing him by the shoulder before he could run down the hall after the kid. “You want to get us busted? And Mike and Jubilee, too?” 

Bobby swallowed hard and gritted his teeth against the panic. “Right, right. And Rahne. Okay, let go, I’m fine! Let go.” 

“He’s not going to say anything. He’s not supposed to be in the office messing with the security equipment, is he?” 

Bobby turned and gawped at John like he was an idiot. “But he must have seen us! Doing… it!” 

“Yeah, funny how you sometimes learn more from extra-curricular activities than you do in class.” 

“Yeah, hilarious. Oh, man, what was I thinking?” 

“Are you kidding? Four times in one day! You’re a genius, lover.” 

_If I’m such a genius,_ Bobby wondered, _why do I feel like a criminal?_

__  


Part 2: Christmas Day

_What’s he thinking?_ St. John wondered. _He doesn’t like it. That’s why he’s doing that thing with his mouth._ John started tapping a finger on the arm of the wingchair until Xavier cleared his throat in admonishment. John restrained himself, looking around the familiar room for new distractions. 

He should have been used to this by now — Professor Xavier reading through a new poem while he sat like a prisoner in the dock, awaiting sentence on his sentences. _Maybe he thinks it’s sentimental. Shit, it’s totally sentimental! But, no, no, I’m not saying that love_ fixes _you. I practically call it a bandaid. A strand of gauze in a rainstorm. Ooh, that’s good. I should add that._

Xavier put down the sheet of rose-hued paper with its tracings of cerulean ink. 

John couldn’t stop himself: “So, what do you think? Or are we going to do the silence thing again?” 

He mentally kicked himself. He sounded pathetic, ungrateful. After all, it was Christmas day, and yet the Professor had been willing to meet with him. Xavier had even told his visitors he had an “important meeting” to attend to as he ushered John into his office. John had liked that. 

However, now that they had reached this ambiguous hour of judgment, John found himself writhing in annoyance. Xavier looked out the window at the perfect Christmas card landscape and sighed. John was suddenly sick of the lugubrious pace of their sessions, of the long, contemplative silences. He was definitely sick of the old man staring out the window and sighing, as if John’s writing career was a burden he had to bear. 

“Look,” John said. “If you don’t like the poem, toss it in the trash and I’ll burn it up. At least it’ll look pretty for a few seconds.” 

The Professor’s eyes flashed with irritation, a rare reaction. John was almost proud. “Don’t be childish, St. John. Are you seriously suggesting that this is the poem you prepared for the open night?” The planned open house in January was mainly an opportunity for the Professor to lean on donors who could help fund the expensive school, as well as the more illicit, paramilitary extra-curriculars. 

“You don’t think it’s good enough? It may not be my best, but it’s better than any of the lame teenage whining you get from your English class.” 

“Beware of arrogance,” Xavier said, his face stony. “It’s a dangerous emotion that blinds us to the contributions of others.” 

“Sorry.” 

“You are too smart to be appeased by such cheap thrills.” 

“Sorry. So, why can’t I read the poem?” 

“St. John, please! You are 16 years-old, and the content would not be understood or appreciated.” 

John jumped to his feet. “You’re censoring me?! I can’t believe this! You’re acting like some kind of trailer-trash cretin who wants to stick a fig leaf on Michelangelo’s David! You’re the porn police! You’re —” 

And now Xavier was angry. “John Allerdyce, sit down and control your outbursts!” 

John remained standing for another five seconds, fists clenched, eyes smoldering, before he let out a loud breath through his nose and returned to his seat. 

“I will thank you not to call me names again. I treat you with respect and I deserve your respect in return.” 

John felt a stab of shame, but his wounded pride still longed for restitution. “You’re just worried about what your donors will say if they hear me talk about sex. But it’s not _about_ sex; it’s about the way —” 

“I know what the poem is about; I’m not an idiot.” John watched his teacher struggle to regain control of his emotions. On second thought, he wasn’t proud of upsetting the old man. “And for the record, I think it is the beginnings of an excellent poem, though you lose control of your main metaphor in the third stanza. However, that is not the problem.” 

“So what is?” 

“You have to think about what effect your poem will have on others. On one in particular.” 

John felt like he’d been slapped; because he knew Xavier was right. He had known all along, even if he had fooled himself with a romantic vision of artistic freedom. “But, Professor, it’s what I feel!” 

“Just because you feel it, it doesn’t mean you have the right to take his privacy from him.” 

John responded so quietly, Xavier had to ask him to repeat himself. “I’m sick of his _privacy_. He’s a coward and he makes me feel like it’s all my fault.” 

Silence. Did the old man really use it to teach? Maybe he just didn’t know what to say. 

“Don’t throw away the poem, St. John. That would be a crime. Be grateful that you have the outlet of poetry for your feelings. Perhaps it is harder for him, alone in his doubt.” 

“He’s not alone!” Another silence. “Fine! I’ll write something different. Something better. About puppy dogs and ice cream and the generosity of rich, wrinkled philanthropists.” 

Xavier laughed. “Excellent! If you write convincingly on the importance of a new roof for this old house, I’ll give you a kickback from any significant donations.” 

John snorted. “Thank you for this opportunity to sell out so young.” He got up and moved towards the door. Then he walked back to the desk and grabbed the poem. “I’ll work on this.” 

“Good. I look forward to the next draft.” 

John paused at the door. Again he couldn’t stop himself: “I don’t like being told what to do,” he said. 

Xavier said nothing, simply held John’s gaze a moment before picking up a pen and lowering his eyes to review some paper on his desk. John closed the door behind him. He found himself wishing he had slammed it. _Dammit,_ he thought. _Why do you lose it around the old man? Because. He’s the only one who understands._

He headed upstairs to change for dinner. He didn’t have much in the way of clothing, but he could at least go from homeless lunatic to careless slacker if he chose carefully. 

Christmas dinner at the school was a strange affair. First of all, it was attended only by those students and teachers who didn’t have family anxiously awaiting their holiday visit. Being one of the “Christmas orphans” made John feel like a _de facto_ loser, and he was pretty sure the sentiment was shared by Jubilee, Fred, Terry and Roberto. It was all pretty depressing. 

Just to add to the cheer, Neal Shaara missed no opportunity to remind people that, as a Hindu, this was not his celebration, and that wishing him Merry Christmas was insulting. John wanted to tell him that dewy, Hallmark wishes were insulting to anyone with a brain, but wit was wasted on Shaara. 

Much as he longed to play Scrooge (he got slapped by Terry when he said that every Santa was just a wannabe Walmart greeter), he had to admit that he was moved by the warmth of the evening. It sure beat his last Christmas. At the time, he had felt so trapped under the punishing thumb of his step-father, he had begun contemplating suicide. Last Christmas was John staring at his plate while the man had call him “useless faggot,” and his mother had sung carols louder and louder in the kitchen to drown it out. In contrast, this year felt like he had something resembling family, people he could love and trust. 

Scott and Jean were at her parents’ house, but Xavier and Ororo were working hard to give each student some attention, and make them feel like they had a family at the mansion. In the kitchen, Margit had outdone herself with a three-course meal, and she positively beamed when everyone toasted her with glasses of eggnog. The sense of family was further enhanced by the presence of Hank McCoy with his mother and sister and, most of all by the mass onslaught that was the massive Guthrie family. 

Two weeks earlier, Sam had run whooping through the dorm when he received news that his parents and his five younger siblings would all be driving up from Kentucky to spend the holidays at the School. The racket he produced single-handedly should have prepared them all for the sheer _volume_ of the Guthries. Sam’s father was probably the only quiet one. Mrs. Guthrie was a force of nature, either laughing uproariously or screaming at one of her kids to climb down from the 20-foot Christmas tree. 

The Guthrie kids trailed chaos with them wherever they went, and yet John had quickly found himself caught up in their madness. Before they went in for dinner, he had started weaving fantastical tales of mutant life at the mansion as they sat in a semi-circle around him, their eyes wide. His secret was out: he liked kids. He had actually made some money babysitting before he ran away from home. It’s true, he had occasionally raided the liquor cabinet or hunted for sex toys in nightstands after his charges were in bed, but he enjoyed being with the kids, playing monsters with the hyper ones and having serious discussions about the universe and life and death with the thoughtful ones. 

So there were some definite high points to the evening. Still, he knew the dangers of sentiment, and not just in literature. More than once, he had to fight the temptation to phone his mother. But what good could have come from it? He knew what the conversation would be like: 

“Hey, mom, it’s me,” he’d say with deceptive nonchalance. 

_Hysterical tears, prayers to the Virgin, begging for him to come home._

“Is _he_ still there? Is he sober?” John would ask. 

_Of course he’s here, and he’s been worried about you, too._

And John would slam the phone down, hoping the noise hurt her ear. 

Sentiment was dangerous. He got up from the table as the room sang “Away in a Manger” and wandered out, not looking back to see who noticed his exit. He felt saner in the isolation of his room. It was even tidy for once, with Slobby Drake away, skiing happily up and down the slopes of Vale like the other children of privilege. He downloaded email and found a note from the man himself: 

_Merry Xmas, J._

_It’s fantastically beautiful in Colorado. Me and my powers are totally happy up here in the mountains. I swear I can smell the snow now! It smells like oranges and butter and your armpits. That’s a good thing, btw. >;-) _

_I was boarding yesterday and I realized I was going to wipe out on this sharp turn, and at the last minute, I made a little ice ramp and totally took the curve!! I can’t wait to tell Scott!_

_Are things okay at the mansion? Tell everyone I miss them. Except don’t tell it to anyone who would think that was wimpy, okay?_

_All that my ‘rents want to know about the school is if I’m meeting “well-connected” people who can help my future. lol_

_My brother Ronny’s not here. :(_

_At the last minute he announced that his friend Jeremy’s family invited him to go to Florida with them. I think he doesn’t want to see me. I think he fucking hates me. Of course, Mom says, “No, no dear, he just needs some time.”_

_I’m like, “Time for what?!!!!” and she’s all “Lalala can’t hear you.”_

_G2G! We’re going to this Hawaiian-themed restaurant for dinner. That is so weird! We’re on a ski trip and we’re going to do this whole luau thing on a fake indoor beach. I’ll let you know how it goes. I love pineapples!_

“You’re a dork,” John told the air, and his heart suddenly felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. He looked around the empty room — empty not just of dirty socks, but of the earnest, horny sweetness of Bobby — and the feeling of impending tears was overwhelming. 

_What the fuck?_ he chided himself, but it was too late and the tears were flowing; he was sobbing and making the stupidest noises he’d ever heard. He dropped his face into his pillow to muffle the sounds and then just let it happen. 

In a way, it was kind of cool… a wild ride on the roller coaster of emotion. His body was not under his control, and that was interesting in an awful kind of way, so he just let it go and go and go, exhausting himself with the intensity of the purge. He was glad Bobby wasn’t there to see it, but at the same time he wished he was bawling in Drake’s arms, with his cool hand caressing the back of his neck. 

He must have fallen asleep because a knock on the door woke him. There was a wet spot on the pillow, and he had to grab a tissue and blow his nose. He looked at the clock and was surprised to see it was almost midnight. 

He wiped his eyes and yelled “What?!” The door opened and Jubilee stuck her head in. 

“Oh shit, were you already asleep? Sorry, but everyone under 15 and over 17 has passed out, and the rest of us are having our way with some spiked eggnog in the music room. Want to join us?” 

He sat up and took stock of his inner world. He felt drained but also light. In fact, he hadn’t felt this happy and free in years. “Uh… Yeah, I could go for some Christmas cheer, why not?” 

Jubilee squinted at him. “You been crying?” 

“Heh, me? Just thinking that I didn’t get to see ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ this year.” 

“You miss him, huh?” 

John gave her a crooked smile. “I don’t know what you mean, gossip queen.” 

“I miss Mike, too. You know, I still worry about him all the time. I keep thinking someone’s going to try and fuck him up, and I won’t be there to stop them.” 

“He’ll be okay. The X-Men are keeping a close eye on the Friends of Humanity.” 

“I know.” 

“And besides, Drake and Mike’ll be back at school in a couple of days, and then we’ll be bitching about how annoying they are.” 

“Bobby’s not cool with people knowing you guys are a couple, right? Don’t worry; I can keep my mouth shut.” 

John sighed and realized he sounded like Xavier. _Fuck_. “Bobby wants to be whatever everyone wants him to be. Unfortunately, everyone wants different things.” 

“Maybe you should tell Sam, though.” 

“Why?” 

“He thinks you’re after Terry.” 

John cracked up. “Good. Maybe he’ll finally make a move. I swear, this love stuff is such a drain on precious energy.” 

“So, what’s the solution, Solomon?” 

“Spiked eggnog. Let’s go.” 

 

Part 3: Winter

There was a shift in the mood at the mansion after the Christmas holidays were through. School was always more serious in the second half of the year, when it was clear you no longer had all the time in the world to get the grades you needed. As February drew to a close, Bobby found his brains maxing out on homework, papers and tests. But there was more to occupy everyone’s thoughts. 

The mutant issue in America was moving from a background hum to an insistent roar. The protest after the broadcast of “The Betrayers” and the coincidental attack by Magneto on the Turcott Clinic had begun the rounds of acrimonious debate in the media. Local initiatives had emerged, both for and against mutant rights. In some cities, mutants were banned from schools; in others, temporary shelters were established to protect persecuted mutants. 

Bobby found it totally weird that the next turning point after Halloween had involved his former high school and one of his best friends. Even more shocking was the way that the attack by the unnamed group (no one had been able to pin it on Friends of Humanity) had divided the country. You would think it was a no-brainer: lunatic vigilantes terrorize defenseless students at a high school Christmas dance, therefore innocent mutants are being threatened and need protection. But no! While millions felt that way, more than 67 percent of Americans polled felt that that the very existence of mutants posed a threat to the security of all. Most admitted they had never knowingly met a mutant. 

One mother from Lincoln High had made it on CNN saying, “I don’t want them in our community anymore. My daughter, Erin, was almost killed because of those… things!” 

Not because of Friends of Humanity. 

Bobby felt disgusted. Or was the nausea from fear? Mike had warned him about Senator Robert Kelly as far back as last summer, and now the man was making his move. The Mutant Registration Act was scheduled for debate in the Senate in just over six weeks and Xavier was getting ready for a political battle. 

If the Act became law, every mutant would have to reveal themselves to the authorities, and possibly wear an identifying badge at all times or face imprisonment. The parallel should have occurred to him, but it was Kitty who pointed out the similarity to Jews and other “undesirables” in Nazi Germany. Surely, if that message were understood… if Americans could only get to know the mutants… 

But nothing was simple. Magneto and his Brotherhood had been responsible for a number of high-profile attacks in recent months. Two of them had begun with earth tremors. Bobby knew who made the earth shake: Lance, his former roommate, his first… um, guy. 

Bobby realized that the political changes meant something different to him than they did to Kitty or to Mike. They had a fire in them about changing things and, while Bobby could understand that, for him it mostly meant more worry and more work. Bobby was Scott Summer’s right hand man now. 

As life became ever more complicated for his mentor as both Assistant Headmaster and field leader of the X-Men, he had been looking to Bobby to take off some of the load. At first, Bobby was excited to be the one double-checking order lists, or writing damage reports that were the inevitable result of powers training, but his days were getting really long. 

“Tell him you can’t do it,” John would say as Bobby lay in his arms, pouring out his troubles with the last threads of consciousness at the end of each day. “Tell him to hire a paid assistant! You’re a student here; not slave labor.” 

But every time Bobby thought of bringing his complaints up with the boss, Scott would do something to sweeten the pot. He would pay Bobby with the gift of his trust. 

“What’s this?” Bobby had asked yesterday as Scott handed him a small black box, undecorated but for the brushed silver ‘X’ on the top. 

“I’m giving you access to the sub-basement, Bobby,” Scott had said, smiling as Bobby’s mouth dropped open. “It’s a double security system. You have to put this box against the sensor and also key in the code on the touchpad. The code changes every week. You’re really helping me out here. You’re really doing something to help the cause.” 

Bobby was so pleased by this honor, especially after having lost Scott’s trust at Halloween, that he said nothing as Scott outlined the maintenance duties that Bobby would now be responsible for in the high-tech world of the X-Men. 

Bobby felt a headache coming on as he finished typing up the lists for team practices in the mock battles they were beginning to hold in powers class. It was 8 p.m., and he decided he’d finish the task later; he still had chemistry homework to complete. He was surprised to see a group of students in the cafeteria and wandered over to find out what was going on. 

“Bobby, hey!” shouted Doug. “Let Clarice touch you.” 

“Huh, why?” he said as he was herded through the group towards her. Clarice was the latest student/refugee, a runaway from a group home, rescued from a mob in Idaho. She was an albino with a huge head of frizzy red hair and small, spooky eyes. Clarice took hold of his arm and he felt his skin tingling. He pulled back the limb in shock and watched as she closed her eyes, almost like she was digesting something — some fact about him or a morsel of his soul. 

“Okay,” she said in a high, feathery voice. “Give me one of those knives.” Rahne handed her the utensil, an ordinary dinner knife from a basket in the food station. The albino girl held it in against her cheek. “Everybody… Oh, wait. Everybody _except_ Doug has touched this knife. 

Fred started laughing. “It’s true! Doug never uses a knife; he just hacks at everything with the side of his fork. That is so awesome, Clarice!” 

Bobby was more unnerved than impressed. Maybe it was just because he was so tired. He slipped away from the group and headed up to the dorms. As he was walking down the hall towards their room, Peter’s door opened and the big guy stumbled out, almost bumping into Bobby. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Peter said with some discomfort. Just then John emerged from the same door. Peter looked from him to Bobby, blushed bright red and then excused himself, hurrying down the corridor and around the corner. 

“What the hell was that?” Bobby asked John. 

John was on the verge of cracking up. “Shh, I’ll tell you in our room.” He grabbed Bobby by the arm and pulled him in, closing the door quickly. “Oh my God, you won’t believe it.” 

Bobby sat down on his bed nervously, not sure he wanted to hear the story. 

“So, I knock on Peter’s door because we’re supposed to work on a history presentation together. He’s sitting at his computer, but he’s acting really weird, like too smiley and loud for Pete, you know?” 

Bobby did. It wasn’t that Peter didn’t have a sense of humor, or that he was trying to prove something by being serious; he just was. Seriously serious and possessed of legendary calm. 

“I kind of had the sense that he didn’t want me to go near his desk, so I sat down on the bed, trying not to spook him. So we talk about the presentation for a while and then he has to go over to his schoolbag to find some notes. I guess I shouldn’t have, but I was so fucking curious and he had his back turned… I got up quietly and moved to his desk. His screen saver is some Impressionist landscape, right?” 

Bobby wasn’t exactly sure what “Impressionist” was, but he got the idea. He nodded. 

“So I just casually jiggled the mouse and BOING!” 

“What?!” 

“Cheerleader porn.” 

“No!” 

“Like all these skinny girls with massive hooters in these little short, pleated skirts and pom-poms, doing high kicks with no panties on. Four, five images all open, like a fucking buffet table.” 

Bobby fell over on his bed, covering his eyes, laughing, “No! No! Did you scream?” 

“I didn’t, but Pete almost did. Fuck, he went white, like I had found him shooting up or something. So I tell him, ‘Sorry, sorry’ and ‘Don’t worry man, it’s cool!’” 

“Did you run the hell out? I would’ve died and run the hell out.” 

“Well, that was an option, but I figured there were possibilities. I mean, he’s a preacher’s son, right? You got guilt and repression there… those are angles you can work. Just ask a former whore.” 

Bobby stopped laughing. “What did you do, John?” 

John sat on the bed beside Bobby, their knees touching. “Well, I stayed cool, man. I sat down in his chair and started checking out the pics, like I was real interested. And saying, ‘Fuck, look at how wet she is, oh man!’ and ‘I would do that one, Pete. Which is your favorite?’ 

“And Pete gets up shyly; like he can’t speak but he wants to confess. Good for the soul, right? He points one of his big meaty fingers at this skinny brunette with curly hair who has this really _dirty_ look on her face, like she’d do you right there in the locker room with the team all around. And you know who she looked like?” 

“Who?” Bobby breathed. 

“Kitty.” John howled. “I mean, she was probably more like 24 and her tits were bigger, but I swear… Anyway, I’m like ‘Oh yeah, she wants it, huh?’ and I know without seeing it — I can sense it like I’m psychic: he has a hard-on that could drill through diamond.” 

Bobby’s mouth hung open, he felt dizzy, hypnotized. 

“It didn’t take much, you know. Just a few well-placed suggestions, and then we’re both there, staring at his screen with our pants open, spankin’ them like there’s no tomorrow. Except of course, I’m watching him more than the screen, but he doesn’t need to know that.” John cackled in triumph. 

Bobby got up without a word and walked to his desk. He sat in the chair, feeling sick, confused. 

“What’s wrong, Drake?” John said behind him. 

“I can’t believe you,” Bobby replied. 

“What? What are you talking about?” 

Bobby turned and the anger he felt was like a force of nature. “How could you do that to someone shy like Pete?! You totally tricked him into some kind of perverted scene for your own fucking amusement! You used him!” 

John turned red. “The fuck! Pete got off with me because he wanted to! I didn’t force him! And let me tell you, there was nothing shy about that orgasm or what he was saying when he came! ‘Yeah, gonna fuck your pussy! Fuck it!’” 

“Shut up! He didn’t say that!” 

“What’s your problem? You know all about being a fucking horndog 24-7! Now you’re suddenly Sister Mary Virgintwat?!” 

Bobby jumped to his feet. He wanted to run, to climb the walls, to tear something apart. He clenched his fists at his side. “You do this to people! You confuse them, make them think they want…That they want to do something that they… that they…” 

John moved across the room in three angry strides until he was face-to-face with Bobby. “Yes?! Yes? C’mon, spit it out! This is about you, right? I’m the one who makes you suck my dick in the middle of the night. I’m the one who makes you grab me after class to get off in the stairwell, saying, ‘John, I need it, I gotta have your fucking DICK!’” He imitated Bobby’s voice as a high whine and Bobby drew back a fist and aimed it at his face. 

John stood his ground. “Go ahead, you fucking hypocrite. Pop me, c’mon!” 

Bobby dropped his raised arm and pushed John aside. He threw himself down on his bed, face to the wall, pounding on the mattress with his fist. 

For a minute, he could only hear the sounds of their breathing, then he heard John sit down on his own bed across the room. “You got a lot of shit to figure out, Bobby. You have to find out who you are. Or are you jealous? Is that it?” 

“No!” Bobby shouted and clamped his mouth shut. He was scared he’d cry if he started talking, but he had to take the risk. “I’m not like you, John.” 

“Hell, that’s for sure. But you know what, Drake? You are. That’s why we’re together.” 

Bobby spun around to face him. “No, you don’t understand. I mean, I know you think this is like… something, I dunno, something romantic… but-but I’m not… _like that_.” 

“Bobby, are you seriously saying you’re not gay?” 

It was like a slap. Bobby had never put that word under his picture in the dictionary. He had edited it from every draft of his biography. And in all the months he and John had been together, it was the first time the word had been spoken between them. His mind rebelled. 

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. I-I like girls.” 

John was suddenly frighteningly calm. “Really. So, here at the mansion, which girl gets you hot?” 

“You’re so vulgar.” 

“No, seriously, you must fantasize about one, since you’re straight or bi or whatever label you got on your t-shirt.” 

Bobby took a deep breath. He could handle this conversation. “Well, I think Dani’s really pretty.” 

“Dani. Nice. What do you like about her?” 

“I-I like the way her hair is. It’s so straight and shiny and flows around her like a stream; it’s really magic. And she moves with so much confidence, you know? Wearing those flat shoes… the ones that have those diagonal straps…” 

“Oh my God, Drake. I asked you what you liked about a girl and you described her hair and her shoes. You couldn’t be a bigger fag if you blew sequins out your ass when you farted.” 

Bobby started to cry. He wanted to leave, but felt frozen in place. The weight of the world bore down, crushing him. St. John crossed the room and sat beside him, slipping an arm around his back, and Bobby hated it and needed it. 

“Listen to me, moron,” John said. “I don’t care what you want to think about yourself. I mean, in my opinion you’ll be happier if you can be more honest, but that’s your business. You want me to keep your secrets? I always have, and I will as long as you want. You still want me in your bed tonight?” 

Bobby nodded. 

“Then I’ll be there. But you don’t get to build yourself up by tearing me down, is that clear?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good. And if you don’t want me to, I won’t fuck around with anyone else at the mansion; even if you’re not my official boyfriend. I don’t really care, frankly. You’re the only one around here that interests me. 

“I don’t know what I want.” 

“That much is obvious.” John kissed his wet cheek and whispered in his ear: “Want to know how big it is?” 

“What?” 

“Peter’s peter.” 

Bobby hiccupped on his tears. _Pathetic, so pathetic._ He nodded again and looked up at his roommate. 

John whistled, shaking his head. “Oh. My. Fucking. God.” 

 

Part 4: Spring

“C’mon Terry, keep it moving. Your form is really good! Uh-oh, looks like Roberto is putting on some speed, don’t let him pass you!” 

From behind the bushes in the grassy ditch beside the track, John could just see the top of Bobby’s head as he coached the class through their laps. John was no longer averse to a bit of exercise; in fact he was proud of how much of a jock he’d become over the winter, something he never thought he had in him. But it was just too glorious a spring day to get all sweaty. It was only the middle of April, and yet the temperature was in the low 70s, the trees were full of flowers, the birds and squirrels were fucking a new generation into existence, and life was sweet. Also, Xavier and Doctor Grey were down in Washington for the Senate hearings and Summers didn’t have time to wield the whistle, so it was Bobby at the helm. 

John had something to celebrate that day, and having been given the chance to goof off, he was damned if he was going to pass it up. “Hand me that root beer,” he said, lying back in the warm grass. 

Mike passed him the can. “Really, it’s not fair, John. Just because we’re Bobby’s best friends, we shouldn’t take advantage like this.” 

“Oh, I know. I feel just horrible,” John replied and wiped away an imaginary tear. 

Up on the track, Fred was wheezing along in last place, looking miserable. “Hey, hey, way to go, Fred!” Bobby said brightly. He glanced at his clipboard. “You’re a whole minute ahead of last week’s time!” 

“Thanks… Bobby,” Dukes replied breathlessly. 

“Fred was so relieved when he found out Bobby was taking today’s class,” Mike told John. “He’s completely terrified of Summers.” 

“He’s the only one here whose ever been blasted by those eye beams.” 

“Yeah, but that was a battle. He was a bad guy then.” 

John cracked up. “I still have trouble seeing your roommate as one of Magneto’s minions of evil.” 

“No way! He’s totally evil. He leaves empty soda cans on my desk, and pretty soon we have ants everywhere.” 

Suddenly, and despite the brilliant sunshine, it started to hail. They both covered their heads and looked up to see Bobby standing at the rim of the ditch, spewing ice chips from his fingers. “Do you think you guys could maybe not undermine my authority completely?” 

“Jeez, Drake,” John said. “I got a lot on my mind today! I’m editing a poem to submit to the Harvest.” 

Mike nodded. “And I’m stressing about the Senate hearings. I didn’t want to miss any news bulletins.” 

“…in the ditch.” Bobby said through tight lips. “Never mind, class is over anyway. Just don’t be so obvious about it next time.” He walked off, going through notes on his clipboard. 

“He’s so cute when he’s asserting himself,” John said and watched Mike look away. John was getting fed up with the situation. He knew that Mike knew about him and Bobby — after all, Jubilee was one of John’s only true confidants — but Mike also knew that Bobby didn’t _know_ he knew and wouldn’t _want_ him to know, which meant that Mike had to _pretend_ not to hear if John happened to…. arrgggghhhhh! It was all ridiculous. 

“You ready to head?” John asked. Mike got to his feet by way of answer, retrieving the soda can that John had tossed in the bushes. They turned to walk back to the mansion. “How do you think it’s going in Washington? Is Dr. Grey squashing Senator Kelly like a bug?” 

“I doubt it,” Mike said. “It’s not as simple as who presents the best case; you have to get a read on where public opinion is. People are scared; they feel helpless and they want their government to do something. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if that something makes sense or not.” 

John looked down at Mike’s tattoo. “So what happens to ‘you are the government’ then? If we can’t make the government see reason…” 

“I guess it means we just have to try harder. Make more noise.” 

“Magento makes noise.” 

“That’s true. Well, then, if he makes noise, we should make music.” 

Mike threw up a fist and chanted: “No, I don’t believe in what you say / You’re just part of what I despise / Yes, you’re part of the fucking system / I ain’t blind, I can see your lies!” 

John cringed. “Anyway, I’ll stick to poetry instead of politics. At least I can change a comma to semi-colon without a Senate hearing.” 

Mike smiled and shook his head in mock disapproval. He waved and headed for the front door while John headed round to the door that led to the locker rooms. He didn’t need a shower, but he was hoping he’d catch Bobby in between moments of excessive seriousness. 

He didn’t want to say anything about the significance of the day; he wanted to see if Mr. Clipboard remembered. Xavier probably would have if he wasn’t in D.C. On the other hand, maybe it was pure narcissism to think he was that big a blip on anyone’s radar. 

He was in luck. The last of the class was just leaving as Bobby finished his paperwork. He smiled at John and began to undress for his shower. Things were looking up. 

“Should I lock the door?” John asked with mounting excitement. 

Bobby bit his lip and got that puppy-dog look which meant he felt guilty. “John, I can’t; I have to talk to Scott before lunch.” 

“Well, maybe after we can grab something from the kitchen and do a picnic thing. I’m kind of in the mood to… celebrate.” 

“No, you have to be there for announcements after we eat! Scott’s got things to tell us about schedule changes while Jean and the Professor are away. Listen, I’ll try to find some time to hang out with you later, okay? I promise. I promise to try, anyway.” 

John scowled. He didn’t even stick around for the cheap thrill of watching the shower water jet off Bobby’s dick like he was taking a piss. He turned around and headed for their room where he grabbed the latest issue of The Harvest and looked at the submission rules again. 

It was an important poetry journal and he knew the chances of being accepted were slim; but somehow, he felt he would be. It was his time. 

Scott’s announcements were predictably boring, and John felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into a dark funk. Blah-blah-blah our thoughts are with Dr. Grey and the Professor as they fight for our rights. Andi Murakami will be teaching blah-blah-blah classes for the next three days. Blah-blah-blah cancelled, but homework still due. 

Everyone was very serious about the Senate hearings. John wished he could share their optimism or whatever it was that drove them. He thought that it must be great for Mike to have something to strive for, but he just couldn’t convince himself that his efforts would make any difference. Except as a writer. Maybe as a friend. 

All through the afternoon, he watched sourly as his fellow students studied and played in the unexpected sunshine. He could have put a stop to all his sulking by letting his secret “slip” to Jubilee or someone else who would spread it, but he wasn’t that desperate. Was he? 

He parked himself in different locations, clicking his lighter until someone asked him to stop, at which point he would make a point of looking disgusted and walking out. Then he would find someone else and repeat the process. _Real mature_ , he thought. 

And throughout the day, Bobby appeared and disappeared, checking items off on his clipboard, helping people with homework, getting them to help him move some piece of equipment somewhere. He’d always be smiling, always patient. It was just sickening. 

After dinner, John figured he had hidden himself well enough, lying with a dusty D. H. Lawrence in a dark corner of the library. But, no! Drake found him. 

“Hey, John, is that you? I’ve been looking everywhere.” 

“What’s wrong? I forget to punch a timecard somewhere? I’m fucking up your spreadsheet?” 

Bobby’s face fell a bit, and John felt some satisfaction in that. “No, I-I just wondered if you could give me a hand with something. Down in the sub-basement. I can’t do it alone.” 

Bobby was silhouetted in the door, the hall light falling on his curls, making the gold bits glisten. John hauled himself to his feet. “Yeah, okay.” He wanted to kick himself because he had no control when it came to Bobby Drake. He would just debase himself over and over, apparently. 

Soon they were in front of the subbasement elevators, and he watched as Bobby waved his magic security box and tapped the code with assurance of a woodpecker. John guessed he was supposed to be impressed, but he felt kind of exposed and wanted them to get underground before anyone saw. 

The elevator moved smoothly into the world of cold chrome. John was never very comfortable down here; he was more at home in the old warm wood of the mansion above. It seemed like a dirty trick that all that tradition was being used to cover up this high-tech war fantasy. John wished he could just pretend it didn’t exist, that there was only a school here. 

They walked the echoing corridors to one of the double wide doors with the big X. John didn’t think he’d been inside this one before. Despite the fact that it looked the same outside as the med lab or the hangar, something about it seemed especially forbidding. John was suddenly plagued by doubts. “What is this, Drake? What are we doing here?” 

“I need your help with something important. Something a bit… _dangerous_.” He passed the security key over the sensor and keyed in another number. The big doors opened and a gush of pressurized air wheezed out. 

Inside, it was dark and cold. St. John squinted into the gloom and reached for his lighter. 

“No!” Bobby said. “Just wait here and I’ll get the lights.” 

John watched him vanish into the shadows and he grew more nervous, as if Bobby was going to transform into some kind of monster and leap out at him. Then he heard the big double doors sliding shut behind him. He turned just as they came together with a resounding “boom.” The room seemed to exhale and there was light everywhere, warm wet breeze, the sound of waves. St. John turned with grave trepidation and found himself on a tropical beach. 

Eyes wide, he wandered forward, staring up at palm trees and seagulls. Under his feet, he felt the slip-slide of sand. Bobby was there in front of him, grinning a huge grin. “Welcome to the Danger Room. It’s the new training area. This is a solid light hologram around us. Cool, huh?” 

John could only nod dumbly. 

“Happy birthday, St. John Allerdyce.” Bobby said. “Forge didn’t program too many environments yet, but I thought this one was pretty good for a private celebration.” He came up kissed John on the cheek. 

John couldn’t stop himself grinning in return, though he did manage some snark. “You’re cheesy as always, Drake. How’d you know it was my birthday?” 

“I have access to some of the records now. Nothing too personal, but the basics. You beat me to 17 by four months.” He grabbed John’s hand and began pulling him across the room, though the concept “room” seemed irrelevant with sailboats bobbing on the distant horizon. Bobby took them to a small stand of palms, and there stood a brass bed with a high mattress and fresh white linens, a canopy above the headboard flapped gently in the breeze. 

“Is that a hologram, too, or can we really lie on it?” 

“No, it’s real. I found it in the attic and snuck it down here in the middle of the night. It’s heavier than it looks.” 

John choked up. He realized just how much it meant to him that there was someone for whom his birthday, his existence meant that much. “Damn it, Bobby, you’re getting me all emotional. Let’s fuck before I turn into a blubbering fool.” 

But what he really wanted was what he got: long, slow, romantic. And the fact that Bobby wasn’t in a hurry meant that John was worth his precious time. They were already post-orgasmic and kissing gently when John noticed something sitting on a rock amid riotous red blossoms and tall grasses. 

He got out of the bed and crossed to it, his half-hard dick bouncing for all the fake seagulls to see. “Holy shit, look what it is!” He held up Scott’s fancy battle visor. The only time they saw him in that was during the more hardcore powers classes or when the X-Men were heading out to save the mutant world. John turned it over in his hands, playing with the mechanism on the side, watching the long, ruby-red slit open and close. 

“Hey, you better be careful with that,” Bobby said, kneeling naked on the bed, looking nervous. “If we damage it —” 

“Relax, will you? It’s gotta be built pretty tough if he takes on Magneto’s people with it. Hey, check it out,” he said and put the thing on his head. 

“John, don’t!” 

The world turned dim, shapes barely visible in the a red-tinted night. “How does he see through this?” 

“Well, don’t forget. His eyes are pumping out light all the time.” 

John stiffened his spine and jutted his jaw. “Bobby, I’m going to require your assistance before class,” he intoned. “It’s an important mission.” 

Bobby snickered at the impersonation. “John, I’m serious —” 

John moved towards the bed, his back unnaturally erect, his stride halfway to a march. “I’m serious, too, Mr. Drake. Dead serious.” He stood beside the bed, naked except for the visor. “On your knees, butt facing me.” He wasn’t sure Bobby would do it, but he did; maybe the boy was that well trained! “Good work. Now spread your ass cheeks apart and show me how well you attend to your hygiene.” John was turning himself on with this stupid routine, and Drake looked like he was ready for round two, himself. 

“Good boy. Hygiene is one of the most important things for any mutant,” he declared, as if he could see anything through the scarlet wall. John climbed onto the bed and let his erection rub against Bobby’s pucker. Bobby moaned. John bent over him and reached around to grab Bobby’s cock. He brought his mouth close to Bobby’s ear, and Scott’s visor bumped against the back of his head. He whispered, “I could fuck you now. I bet you brought lube and a condom.” He rubbed himself slowly up and down the crack and used Bobby’s own pre-cum to jack him. 

Bobby’s voice was ragged, breathy. “Oh God… feels good. But, n-no, I can’t… I don’t want it…” 

“I wont hurt you. It’ll feel so good,” John whispered. Bobby moved his knees farther apart as if inviting the invasion. “I’ll slide in so sweet, you’ll wonder why you never tried before… until you’re full of my hot cock, until it touches you places you only —” 

The breeze stopped; around him the dark shapes of the palm trees winked out of existence. The swish of the waves was replaced by the dull monotony of the subbasement’s mechanical hum. John looked towards the door and pulled off the visor. Scott Summers stood there in his black leather uniform, his arms crossed over his chest. The tropical beach was gone, replaced by the featureless grey walls and dull metal floor of the Danger Room. _But the bed… The bed is real,_ John thought. 

He almost fell as Bobby scuttled out from under him like a crab and pulled the sheets up to cover his nakedness. The situation was so shocking that John took a few seconds to react, before he, too joined Bobby under the sheet. Scott walked up the bed, his face as cold and emotionless as a robot’s. He reached out a hand. “Visor.” John handed it to him carefully, and it was only in the way it was jerked from his fingers that John could read Scott’s anger. 

Bobby was sitting up, his knees two mountains under the sheet, the sheet pulled up so high, only his eyes and the top of his head were visible. He was shaking. The moment stretched out unbearably before Scott turned and left the room, the great doors sliding shut with a definitive basso exclamation: 

X. 

John slid out the bed and pulled his clothes back on. Bobby didn’t move except to pull John’s side of the sheet tightly around him. John nodded. Fate was fate, he knew that. “Okay, Bobby, this is how it played out. I know the situation feels pretty shitty, but it’s not a bad thing. Now it’s not a secret anymore. Now you and I can be —” 

“SCOTT!!” Bobby shouted and jumped out of bed, like he had only just awakened to the horror of the situation. He raced in circles, collecting his clothes, falling over as he tried to hop, one-legged into his pants. John moved to help him, but he was on his feet again in a second, pulling on a sock, a shirt, running to the door without shoes, still in one bare foot. 

“Shit,” John muttered and followed, scared of what his crazy friend was up to, and scared he’d be trapped in the room or the subbasement if Drake vanished with his magic keys. He jumped into the elevator with Bobby just before the door closed. Bobby was pounding on the wall of the elevator and screaming at it to go faster. “Bobby, you have to calm down! You’re losing it!” 

His words didn’t have much effect; as soon as the doors open, Bobby was on the move, running and stopping, changing vectors, running again, looking everywhere for his teacher. “I have to explain… I have to make him understand that it wasn’t…. It wasn’t anything!” John stood where he was and stared at Bobby’s mania. He had a very bad feeling suddenly. 

“Andi,” Bobby screamed as he saw the psychology student coming down the hall. He ran to her and grabbed her by the arms. “Where’s Scott?! I have to talk him right away!” 

Andi was so startled, she almost jumped away. “Are you okay? What’s the matter?” 

“Scott, where is he? Please!” 

“He-he’s gone, Bobby. He and Ms. Monroe just left in the jet.” 

Bobby made a horrible noise, like an animal in a trap. “But… but it’s important! Where did they go?!” 

“Northern Alberta, they said. Bobby, they’ve gone to Canada.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike’s song in part 4 is “No” by Subhumans.


	23. Willing to Make Sacrifices (X1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events in this chapter take place around events in the first X-Men movie. In my mind, John is always the incarnation played by Aaron Stanford in X2 and X3. Kitty is not any of the three actresses who played her, heh. David Allyne (Prodigy) is a character from comicverse. He appeared in Academy X and New X-Men.

A tender line drawn from you  
   To me that lassoes  
The moths of       history  
Drawn tight  
To our light    they get more than they  
Bargained for:  
         Self-immolation as tribute  
                              As protest 

Something was still fundamentally flawed in the argument, John realized, but he couldn’t find the problem. He put down the poem that he had been revising for a month and sipped his coffee. He looked up at the big screen in the rec room to watch the earnest anchorwoman spooling out the morning’s headlines. In general, John didn’t care about the news, but he often found himself sitting with the current affairs addicts who would catch 30 minutes of CNN between breakfast and first class. Maybe he just liked the coffee that they all drank so earnestly, like a badge of their intensity. They had even arranged their own fancy coffee station, complete with antique Xavier family cups and creamer, so they could amp up and get serious about the state of the world. 

This morning’s crowd included the usual suspects: Kitty, Jubilee, Mike and Doug. Special guest stars included the albino empath, Clarice, and David Alleyne, one of the latest young mutant refugees. Mike, at the center of the couch wielding the remote, was the unnamed ringleader of the headline kids and the loudest armchair commentator — broadcast news as spectator sport. 

“I don’t get it,” he said, running a tense hand through his short Mohawk. “When did the UN Summit become a conference about mutants?” 

Doug wiped off his coffee moustache and replied, “It’s about pressing issues facing the world. We’re a pressing issue.” 

Mike shook his head. “No, in the lead-up to the summit, it was all economics and the so-called ‘war on terror.’ Now suddenly world leaders are coming together to freak each other out about mutants. Who hijacked the summit?” 

Hank McCoy wandered in, tut-tutting over one of the ubiquitous, canary yellow class schedules. John was always fascinated by the way his somewhat goofy, baby-faced demeanor contrasted with the utterly Neanderthal effect of his over-sized hands and feet. 

“Good morning, Dr. McCoy,” Jubilee said with a wave. “Are you going back to Washington today?” 

“Yes, later this morning, but Mr. Summers has asked me to teach his first two classes while he’s meeting with the Professor. That is, if I can figure out this schedule. Ooh, coffee!” 

He sat on the arm of the couch and transferred his papers to his right foot (which was bare and astonishingly dexterous), while he daintily swirled coffee and cream in a china cup, a silver spoon suspended between two sausage-sized fingers. He observed the news broadcast over the top of his half-moon, wire-frame glasses. “Ah, yes, there’s my superior, the Director of Mutant Affairs, in the background.” 

“See? Mutant affairs is all over this,” Mike exclaimed. “Dr. McCoy, how did this summit become all about mutants anyway?” 

Surprisingly, it was David Alleyne who had the answer. “Senator Kelly also sits on some important international trade committees. He probably made sure his pet agenda got addressed, in exchange for getting some key trade issues on the table for the foreign leaders.” 

Hank raised his cup in salute. “I’m impressed, young man.” 

“David.” 

“David, you seem to know a great deal about the workings of Washington.” 

Kitty hadn’t taken her eyes from the screen and they remained there as she said, “That’s just his mutation, Dr. McCoy. He absorbs the expertise of anyone he’s around. You’re impressed with yourself, not him.” 

John stifled a laugh as David cringed with embarrassment and explained, “Not permanently absorbed; just while I’m around the, um, expert.” 

McCoy nodded in fascination. “How useful! Nice to meet you, David.” 

David puffed himself up. “Call me ‘Prodigy’.” 

“Oh, are you all adopting code names, now?” Hank asked, stroking his chin. “It’s sometimes so hard to keep track; reminiscent of watching a Chekhov play.” 

Kitty rolled her eyes. “I’ll just be ‘Kitty’ if it’s all the same to you.” 

“A rugged individualist! Brava.” He took his coffee and walked over to one of the tables to read. 

“Liberty Island,” Mike muttered in disgust, absorbed again by the broadcast. “How amazingly original.” 

Jubilee grinned. “Nope, nothing symbolic there.” 

“Or ironic,” said Clarice in her spacey voice which they had all grown used to surprisingly fast. John considered how quickly the odd became the norm when you lived in a community like this. 

John found the banter more interesting than the news, and listening to his friends was a pleasant distraction from his worries. His worries had two names: Bobby and Drake. After Bobby realized that Scott had left for Canada last night, after he realized that it was too late to somehow make his teacher _un-_ see the two of them humping naked in the Danger Room, Bobby had vanished. He hadn’t returned to their room to sleep and he hadn’t been at breakfast that morning. John would have been worried, but Terry had said she spotted him, running laps on the back field at 6 a.m. 

It was almost time for class and Bobby never skipped; so while John was listening to the news kids debate, he was watching the door for a glimpse of bronze curls. What he would say to Bobby wasn’t clear, because frankly, John couldn’t fathom why Bobby cared so much what stick-up-his-bum Summers thought of him. John knew better than to be so invested in anyone’s opinion. He picked up his pen: 

         A web of lies that Trap!  
            the moths of history 

A series of expletives and catcalls from the group. John look up at the screen as Senator Robert Kelly, who would probably still look like a tow-headed teen at 80, waved to a group of supporters who were wielding a lot of angry signs with the word “mutant” on them. In a voiceover, the anchor segued from mutant affairs and the summit to yet another profile of the charismatic senator whose fame was on the rise thanks to his mutant registration bill. The protest actually looked kind of feeble, but the report made is sound like something significant. 

“Oh my God, do you see that sign?” Jubilee asked. “ _‘Mutants are killers!’_ How can they do that? Isn’t it hate crime?” 

“Mutant status is not a protected characteristic under any hate crimes legislation,” Mike answered. 

“ _‘Take aim against mutants!’_ Something’s seriously wrong with that,” Doug said. 

“Yup,” John put in. “The preposition should be ‘at,’ not ‘against’.” 

“Is Kelly going to speak to them?” Clarice wondered. 

Doug shook his head. “No, just passing through, I think.” 

“What exactly is the point of this segment?” Mike asked. “Just make some money riling up Americans?” 

David’s lip curled in disgust. “Who are those jerkwad protestors, anyway? Friends of Humanity?” 

“Probably,” Clarice answered. “I heard they’re having a big national conference in Colorado next week.” 

Everybody found themselves looking at Mike who grew stony-faced. The attack that had brought him to the mansion was something of a legend among the students. 

Jubilee put an arm around him and kissed his neck. “Why aren’t they declared a terrorist organization? They should all be in jail.” 

A rueful smile crossed Mike’s face. “No, FOH is supposedly _legitimate_. Just a grass-roots lobby group devoted to informing the American people on the dangers of mutants. No one has proven a connection between them and any violent action.” 

“I’ll connect them to some violent action,” Jubilee muttered, balling her fist. 

“And there he goes,” Kitty said, shaking her head as Kelly climbed into the helicopter. “The new Hitler.” 

John laughed out loud. “Come on, Kitty! He looks more like the new Tom Sawyer.” 

“Hitler didn’t exactly look scary either, John,” Mike said. “That crazy hair? And the moustache? But he made a lot of people believe his lies.” 

John was sorry he’d opened his mouth. He hated political discussions. “Yeah, but why does everyone always say ‘Hitler’ whenever there’s a politician they don’t like? It’s not the same situation and you know it.” 

Kitty picked up her books. “We’ll discuss it again one night in the concentration camp, after we’re all rounded up. Let’s go to History class.” She didn’t wait for anyone, just turned and walked out. 

They all stood and brought their cups back to the sideboard. John found his foot twitching nervously. “Is she serious about that stuff?” he asked Doug, though he was still scanning the doorway for Bobby. 

“Rahne told me Kitty’s been up late, reading all her Holocaust books again. She’s writing about it for her History term paper.” 

“Bobby! There you are!” cried Hank McCoy who leaped casually over the back of his chair, landing almost silently despite his size. John spun around and watched Bobby enter the room. “Could you please help me? Are we following grid ‘A’ or grid ‘B’ today? I’m not sure whether I’m covering Scott’s Mathematics or Engine Repair class, neither of which I’m the least bit qualified for.” 

John was stupidly nervous as he sidled closer. He noticed that Mike and Jubilee were watching him, sensing that something was up. 

“Grid ‘B,’ Dr. McCoy. You should be in classroom 4 at 10 o’clock.” Bobby was his usual confident self. He seemed well-rested and impeccable in his new blue-green plaid shirt. _He must have gone back to our room after I left_ , John realized. Bobby was looking in every direction but his. This shit had to stop and soon. 

Everybody was in motion now, clearing the rec room and heading for first period. He had to catch Bobby before class, find out what he was thinking. As John was leaving the room, he spotted himself in a mirror. He had gone into Salem for a haircut on the weekend and assessing it now, he realized Jubilee was right: it was too cute by half. He ran a hand through it, erasing the part in the bangs. He straightened his new red sweater. What was that thing on it anyway? A salamander? He wondered if Bobby would like it… _Fuck!_ he thought as he raced down the hall after Drake, W _ho the hell am I? I don’t even recognize myself!_

The first class was held in the Arboretum — History with Ms. Monroe. Bobby was using his long legs to great advantage, pulling away down the hall so that John had to sprint to catch up. _He’s trying to get away from me!_

He grabbed Bobby’s arm just before he went through the big doors into the greenest of the classroom spaces. “Bobby, can you cool your jets for a minute? I want to talk to you.” 

Bobby turned and stared at him with so blank and unruffled an expression that John was caught off guard. He had been prepared for anger, for panic, for anything other than this impersonal curiosity. “What about, John? We don’t want to be late.” 

Jubilee caught John’s eye as she walked past, and he had a desperate desire to ask her to stay and help. But that was ridiculous. He stammered, “Can we… I mean, just for a minute. About last night.” 

Bobby’s eyes grew hard in warning. Clarice passed them and he grinned. “Hi, Clarice. Everything going good?” 

She smiled back warmly, “Great, Bobby,” and entered the classroom. 

His smile button was summarily snapped off and he lowered his voice. “John, this isn’t the time. And there’s nothing to discuss, anyway. We made a mistake. The whole thing was a dumb idea. Now let’s go in before we get in more trouble.” He turned on his heel and followed the others inside, leaving John confused and directionless. 

“Wait, a sec… What do you mean ‘the whole thing?’” He ran after him. “Bobby, cut the bullshit!” But now he was in the Arboretum and people were turning to look his way curiously. Ms. Monroe was writing notes on the blackboard, and he had no choice but to take his seat and swallow his confusion for the time being. 

“All right, students,” the elegant, white-haired teacher began. “Let’s recap the events around the Battle of Antium. The Roman Senate had voted to —” She stopped and looked up over their heads. “Oh, good morning.” 

Everyone turned in time to see Dani walking into the room with a stranger. 

Rahne leaned over to John and whispered, “That must be girl the X-Men rescued last night.” 

Ororo called to her, “Please take a seat anywhere. We are studying the Roman Empire.” 

“There were two of them, I thought,” John whispered to Rahne as he sized up the newcomer. Her eyes were dark and bugging out a bit with nerves, her long hair falling down to cover her pretty face as she sat shyly. She was dressed simply in black, but the outfit was oddly accessorized with a long sparkly scarf around her neck and tight brown leather gloves. Weird. 

Sam, sitting on his other side, answered the question. “The other one’s still in the med lab. I hear he’s some kind of monster or something.” 

John sneered. “Frankenstein or Cookie?” 

The new girl found a seat right behind him, beside Jubilee who reached out an enthusiastic hand to shake, but the girl backed away as if afraid. _Someone been beating on you, sweetheart?_ John wondered. 

John noticed Bobby watching her with interest. The new girl turned his way and he threw her a Drake special smile. _Resist him,_ John thought at her, hoping maybe she was telepathic. _He gets under your skin and then you’re fucked._ But John could see that she was charmed, compelled, smitten. Just like everyone. 

He suddenly felt competitive. He might not have the smile that kills at 50 paces, but he wasn’t without his own arsenal. He reached surreptitiously for his lighter… 

In the hall after class, people were anxious to say hello to this “Rogue.” John watched for a while, taking note of the girl’s social strategies. She did the shy flirt thing, inviting guys to take care of her because she was a flower; but there was a core, too. Someone who knew herself. Maybe someone who’d lived a bit more than she had bargained on. 

“Of course he’s not a _monster_ ,” Rogue was telling Sam with a laugh. Her laugh was definitely on the musical side. “Maybe a bit of an animal. Calls himself ‘Wolverine.’ But he’s honestly kinda sweet. Frankly, I never expected to meet another mutant in the wilds of Alberta!” 

“Is that where you’re from?” Fred asked. “Alberto or whatever?” 

“No, no, I was passing through. I was hitchhiking to Alaska.” 

Bobby was suddenly there. Maybe it didn’t feel like such a big moment to everyone else, but for John, his presence filled the hall. “You were hitchhiking by yourself? All that way? Wow. Where did you start?” 

John could see that Bobby’s arrival meant a lot to Rogue, too. She blushed as soon as she saw him. 

“Um, from Mississippi, actually. That’s where I… where my family lives.” 

John didn’t like the intensity of her stare. _Jealous much?_ he taunted himself. He stepped forward. 

“Yeah, Fred, you dumb-ass. Does she sound like a Canuck?” He put on his best ersatz Southern gentleman’s accent, puffing out his chest and bowing graciously. “No, she’s a delicate belle of the South.” 

Rogue laughed at his clowning. “I’m anything but! You’re John, right? And Bobby, of course.” 

John persevered with his pantomime. “No, no my gracious flower. He is Beauregard the bachelor. And I am the young widow Ivy Lerre de Poison, also known as the Lady in Red.” His body language morphed into something drippingly feminine, but tragic and hard. He had no idea from what deviant brain cell this bullshit was hatching. He had some vague memory of a romance novel in his mom’s bedroom — some cheap tale about a showboat on the Mississippi River, the daughter of wealth in love with the show’s quadroon baritone. The book featured a half-naked hunk and a girl in lace and crinoline on the cover (John had been intrigued by both), and was full of engorged parts and lots of swooning. 

In any case, Rogue was amused and the other students a bit astonished — all except Bobby who was fixing him with the coldest look he had. “Yeah, that’s John, all right. The big clown of the mansion. You all settled in your room?” 

“Yes, Dani and Terry have been just so sweet. I’m… kind of amazed to be here. Sorry if I’m acting like a retard.” 

“Don’t worry about. We all feel like that on our first day at Mutant High.” 

_Mutant High?_ John’s eyes went wide. _No one calls it that!_

“Do you know where Math class is?” Bobby asked. 

“I’ll show her,” Kitty offered. 

“Great,” Bobby said, the best of big brothers. And as everyone disappeared around the corner: “Hey, John. Talk to you a minute?” His voice was every warm family movie there had ever been. Why wasn’t John relieved? 

As soon as they were alone, Bobby’s whole body changed, like chains connecting his balls to his ears were being pulled tight by unseen torturers. “What the hell was that? ‘The Lady in Red?’” 

John quickly forgot his intention to stay calm. “I was joking around, asshole. After all, I’m the _mansion clown,_ apparently. Are you going to act like a complete psycho all day, Bobby? Because it’s only 9:57 and I’ve already had my fill.” 

“What did that mean, anyway? You’re some kind of drag queen now?” 

“Oh my god, he’s lost it. Bobby, please. It was fucking shitty luck what happened last night, but it happened, okay? Happened to _us_ , not just you. Did Summers say anything this morning?” 

The Amazing Transforming Bobby changed yet again, losing two inches of height as he curled in on himself, his hands twisting up bunches of shirt. “No. I-I have to go look for him. Try to explain…” 

“Explain what? That we slipped on a wet patch, flew out of our clothes and landed naked in a pile? Good thing there was a brass bed handy to catch our fall.” 

Bobby gave a horrible, tiny moan and took off, his long legs pumping again. John spent the next five minutes folding curse words into obscene origami. This was a going to be a bad day. 

To make matters worse, he realized he was now late for Summers’ Math class. He began sprinting through the halls, hoping he could get in before the man in shades locked the door. 

John hated feeling cowed by that big bully who twisted Bobby into knots, and he wished he could fry his ass with a well-aimed fireball. But he couldn’t. He needed his life at the mansion. He needed the friends, the support Xavier provided with his writing, the sense that he had a future. And he needed Bobby Drake, which he should have seen as weakness. Somehow, though, he felt stronger for having this need. He felt completed by desire, by the chance to care for someone. 

He pulled into the foyer and stopped short as he remembered a crucial fact: Summers wasn’t teaching this morning; Dr. McCoy was taking his place! 

He would skip Math. The idea of sitting there with Bobby grinning at Rogue and avoiding his eyes… it was too fucking much. He headed for the side door and ran out into the sunshine. Another beautiful spring day mocked his misery. 

 

*** 

 

Scott had appeared in the last 15 minutes of his math class and taken over, much to the relief of Hank who was crumbling under the weight of questions from the confused students. As Scott took his place by the whiteboard, Bobby saw him do a quick scan of the class. He was noting John’s absence, Bobby knew. Scott turned to look at him. Was he blaming him for that, too? It wasn’t fair! John always got him in trouble. 

He stayed behind after class at Scott’s request. Sitting alone in a sea of desks, waiting for the teacher to lecture you was a special kind of humiliation. It made you feel bad even before he said anything. Not that Bobby could feel worse than he already did. Maybe if he could speak first… 

“Scott, about last night. The whole thing was just a dumb kind of accident. I never intended —” 

“Bobby, I want you to return the subbasement key.” 

Bobby felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “But… I have responsibilities there. You need me to —” 

“Clearly I can’t trust you with those responsibilities. The Danger Room is not your private playground. I told you that you could not bring other students down there without staff permission.” 

“But Scott, you need me! I’m your… your assistant and stuff!” 

“Don’t get too full of yourself, mister. There are other students here who have proven their reliability. Now, bring me that key.” 

Bobby got up and walked to Scott who stood as still and unforgiving as a gallows. Bobby reached into his pocket and pulled out the electronic “key,” the sleek, X-branded box that had been a sign of his teacher’s approval. The outstretched hand opened in front of him and Bobby stared at it. For a moment, deep inside him, anger bloomed. It had no words or reason attached to it; it was an animal thing, a monster roused in its cave. More than anything, it wanted to leap free and strike. Bobby clamped down hard on the feeling, afraid of its sheer irrepressible power. He watched in shame as cold mist flowed out of his hand, covering the key in frost. He pulled it loose and handed the freezing object over. Scott scowled as the cold metal bit his hand and rubbed it vigorously across his shirt. 

Bobby turned away in humiliation, but before he could walk out, Jean entered the room. She smiled for a second when she saw him, but he couldn’t hide his feelings fast enough. Her smile vanished and she looked with concern from him to Scott. 

Bobby was stuck between them as Scott spoke again, this time to his back. “I warned you about John Allerdyce. When you choose your friends, Bobby, you make serious life choices. I think you’re starting to realize that. You still have time to become the man I believe you can be, but you have to be willing to make sacrifices!” 

The animal anger stirred in him again. He was afraid of it. He didn’t dare look Jean in the eye, couldn’t believe she had to see this. Did he have to lose the respect of all the staff in one day? “May I go now, sir?” he managed through gritted teeth. 

“Yes. After dinner, I will let you into the subbasement again. I want that bed returned to wherever you found it.” 

He couldn’t stay there another second; he pushed past Jean with a barely audible “excuse me” and hurried out the door, pulling it closed after him. He threw himself against the far wall of the corridor and tried to survive the wave of rage and misery that threatened to drown him. His frozen breath formed a fog around his face. 

A voice caught him by surprise “Why are you beating up on that poor boy?!” It was Jean, angry and dismayed. Bobby looked up and realized that the door had bounced rather than latching. It stood open a few inches, letting their fight escape into the hall. 

“What am I supposed to do, Jean? I put my trust in a student and then find him being mounted like a dog… in a restricted area! I’m telling you, it was all I could do not to grab that punk Allerdyce and throw him out the front door naked!” 

Bobby found himself moving back towards the door. He had to close it, shut off the voices; but he stood just outside, unable to move without being caught. _Leave!_ he told himself. And then, _It wasn’t John’s fault!_

“Here’s a tip, Mr. Assistant Headmaster,” Jean continued, her voice tight with anger. “Don’t hang your problems on your teenage students!” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? That wasn’t Bobby I saw last night! That was a good kid losing his direction. Once that happens, it’s over, Jean. You don’t know, you didn’t see that kind of ugliness from your privileged neighborhood?, not the way I did on the streets.” 

“So why doesn’t John deserve _more_ of your compassion, since you know how hard the streets are? What makes you superior to him?!” 

“I didn’t give in, that’s what. They wanted me to, but I never — NOT ONCE — peddled my ass!” 

“And that’s why Bobby’s not allowed to make love to his boyfriend in your school?” 

Screaming was not an option, but the effort it took to restrain himself almost killed him. _He’s not my boyfriend! I’m not like that! He tricked me!_

Then Bobby panicked; she was a telepathic. Was he broadcasting? He took off down the hall, falling through the void into a place without mercy or respite. He wouldn’t survive; he had to find his equilibrium again. He ran to the end of the corridor and burst out through the fire door into the sunshine. 

He ran around the back of the school and across the sports field, coming to a halt in the small glade that surrounded the pond. Here he hoped he could find some peace. He realized he wasn’t alone — sitting in the gazebo by the water, staring into its green depths was John. Bobby knew him well enough to see that something was troubling him, and he couldn’t stop himself asking: “John, what are you doing here? What’s wrong?” 

John’s head snapped up and he stared in shock, as if Bobby had risen from the dead. “What are _you_ doing here, Drake?” 

“I-I just needed to be alone.” 

John got to his feet. “Me too. Fine, I’ll go.” 

“No, I’ll go. You stay.” 

John’s face hardened. “If I say I’m going to go, then that’s what I mean. Don’t be an argumentative bitch!” 

“Fuck you! If I want to go, I can go!” 

“But that’s stupid! I won’t be here! You can stay!” John got up and left the gazebo. 

“Fine, I’ll stay!” Bobby shouted, exasperated. He stepped into the structure and dropped down on a bench, his arms folded on his chest. 

“Good!” John snapped, and Bobby could see him in his peripheral vision, hesitating, waiting for something more to be said. Bobby wouldn’t return his gaze, and John finally gave up and took off, stomping away through the tall grass until the silence returned. 

Bobby looked down into the water just as John had, as if he might still see his roommate’s reflection caught in its depths, as if he could see a version of their life together where things didn’t have to be a disaster. 

 

*** 

 

John kept trying to make himself scarce as the day went on, but no matter what he did, he kept bumping into Bobby. They both went to the cafeteria for lunch at the last possible moment, hoping to avoid each other, and had to collect their food side by side, in forced nonchalance, each staring at some random moronic spot on the wall. 

Their next class was together (Xavier’s advanced Physics seminar), and there was no point in avoiding each other on the short walk to the classroom. So, they walked together, each trying to do outdo the other’s cool. 

“Anthropic forces. What a mind fuck!” John said as they walked, almost whistling in his feigned calm. 

“Seriously,” Drake returned with a bored yawn, and John could swear they almost cracked up. Maybe then things could have gone back to normal, like the last 24 had never happened. But they didn’t crack up. 

Halfway through the seminar, the Professor suddenly spoke telepathically to the five students. 

_*There is a man on his way here. He is confused and reacting largely on instinct. I do not wish to alarm him further, so please remain calm when he enters. I will disable him if he becomes in any way violent.*_

The students glanced at each other in surprise, but the Professor turned to Dani with a smile and asked her to explain the diagram on the whiteboard. It was as if he had never sent the mental warning. It was as if he was playacting and inviting them join in the fun. And when the door burst open seconds later, they all managed to react like it was nothing out of the ordinary that a barefoot guy with crazy mutton chops was running around in X-sweats. 

John found it hard to return his gaze to the Professor. This was clearly Rogue’s “Wolverine” and he was, not to put too fine a point on it, insanely hot. 

After they were dismissed, they gathered excitedly in the corridor to discuss the bizarre invasion. Kitty seemed to have stayed behind. Would she have any more information on the stranger? But she phased out through the door a few seconds after later, looking disgruntled. “The Professor reminded me that it’s not polite to spy,” she muttered in annoyance. 

Thinking about Bobby just hurt his brain, so John spent the afternoon hoping for another glimpse of Wolverine’s hot hairiness. Among other things, he couldn’t forget the way the guy’s junk had been swinging in the sweats. _Guess he couldn’t find any X-underwear_ , he thought with pleasant shiver. 

Wolverine was the big news of the day, but the only one who saw him before dinner was Roberto, who was on a bathroom break during fourth period when he spotted the mysterious mutant with Dr. Grey, disappearing into the subbasement elevator. He had run back to class, whispering excitedly, like he was a naturalist who’d made a big discovery in the jungle. 

The students were already eating dinner when Wolverine entered the cafeteria with the doctor and Professor Xavier. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. This seemed to make the man very uncomfortable; in fact, he looked ready to bolt. The moment was smoothed over when Rogue jumped happily to her feet and joined the group at the door. John watched her bouncing around the guy and realized he wasn’t the only one who would happily get Wolverine horizontal. In any case, her hair-flipping and ass-wiggling seemed to do the trick, and he agreed to come in and eat, which he did at the teachers’ table, his back to the students. 

John was seated with a group that included Bobby and Rogue, but he had placed himself at the end of the table, far enough away that he could watch them without getting too involved. Rogue made a point of including him in the conversation from time to time, but he found he could just throw out a quip, make her laugh and then be left alone again. Bobby was working hard, he noted, setting the girl up with different students to get notes for all her new classes, promising to go into Salem with her on the weekend to buy essentials. John squinted his eyes at Bobby’s cheerful demeanor. _Something’s off_ , he thought. _Bobby’s freaking out and he won’t let it show._

He got to his feet and Rogue looked up. “No dessert for you, John? Bobby says there’s cherry pie tonight!” 

“I thought you’d prefer peaches, sugah!” John drawled in his fake accent and she gave him the finger with such ladylike discretion that he almost said, “you got to be kidding.” 

He scowled his way across the room and dropped down at another table with Mike, Jubilee and Doug. “I need information,” he declared. 

Jubilee nodded as if she had been expecting his arrival. “Me and Doug have been piecing it together.” 

“Is this a gossip session?” Mike asked and got to his feet. “Because I don’t like gossip sessions.” 

John smirked. “Why don’t you go watch some pre-summit programming. I hear Joan Rivers is doing the red carpet tomorrow.” 

“And a ha-ha to you, too,” Mike said. He kissed Jubilee on the cheek and left. 

“Bye Mike,” Doug said brightly. As soon as he was gone, the three dropped their heads into conference mode, lowering their voices, their eyes darting around the room. 

“Something’s up with Bobby,” John started. 

“Yes, and we suspect you’re involved,” Jubilee said pointedly, “but we’ll interrogate you later. We think he had a fight with Scott some time around lunch.” 

“He lost access to the subbasement,” Doug said. 

John bit a hunk off his thumbnail. “Shit, how do you know?” 

Jubilee nodded minimally towards Peter who was in some serious discussion with Neal. “Terry saw Scott teaching the big guy how to use the key gizmo.” 

Doug nodded, adding, “And Jones and me accessed the permissions log. Bobby was removed from alpha status at 1415 hours.” 

John turned and watched Bobby and Rogue carrying their dishes off to the clean up area. With gallant flair, he took her tray and tucked it in with the dirties. “It all makes sense. He’s in good boy overload — compensating. What about the hairy guy with the hairy attitude?” 

Doug shook his head. “Not much yet. We found a Canadian travel article from a few months ago that mentioned the ‘King of the Cage’ as the only attraction in this small town. Sounds like he’s been basically a circus act up North.” 

They looked at Wolverine, hunched over his food, eating ravenously and not looking like much of a conversationalist. The Professor studied him in silence; Jean was shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Scott was nowhere to be seen. 

Jubilee gave John an appraising look. “What do you think about him?” 

A sly smile crossed John’s lips. He reached over and grabbed Doug, pulling him under his arm in a headlock. “Hey! Quit it!” the boy squealed, unable to see anything but the floor. 

John held him firm as he mouthed his opinion of Wolverine to Jubilee: “Wow!” 

“Really!” she said, her eyebrows going up. “I guess I can see it.” 

John’s let his eyes go droopy with lust. He ran his tongue obscenely around his lips and she let loose one of her barking laughs. John released Doug who popped back up like a jack-in-the-box. “What? What did you guys say?” 

“Sorry, kid, no admission under the age of 17.” 

“Did you know,” Doug began, undeterred, “that wolverines are loners? They’re fierce hunters, but they’re so rarely seen in the wild that one researcher who’s studying them has only made one partial sighting after, like, seven years in the field.” 

John sized up the mysterious beast who was now managing to make monosyllabic conversation. “So, bagging one would be a feather in the old hunting cap, huh?” 

“I guess,” Doug said. 

“Thanks for the download, kids,” John said, getting to his feet, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans and leaving his tray, knowing full well that Doug would return it for him. “I have appointments to keep.” He marched from the cafeteria, pointedly ignoring Bobby and Rogue, though he would have liked to know if they noticed him ignoring them. 

Jubilee caught up with him just outside the door. “Hold it! What are you up to, Allerdyce?” Now that she asked, he realized he didn’t actually know. He just needed to do… _something!_ She looked him over as if she was assessing the best angle of attack. “Are you and Bobby breaking up?” 

He snorted. “Is it possible to break up if you’re not together? Bobby seems to think our entire relationship was some kind of mistimed mini-golf tournament.” He meant it to be funny, but it depressed them both. “How many people know, Jubilee?”? 

“About what? You and Bobby? That worrying you?” 

“I don’t give a shit what they think about me!” he said and cracked his neck. “I’ll dance around in a red dress if I feel like it. But yeah, how many know about him? About us?” 

“Me and Mike, obviously. Terry suspects, and Kitty’s a fool if she doesn’t.” 

“That one keeps her cards close to her chest.” 

“Stuck up.” 

“Nah, she just thinks it’s the end of the world,” John replied. “But whatever. And Doug knows. Jones busted us twice so Doug must know.” 

She shook her head definitively. “Nope. Not a clue. Guess Jones can keep a secret.” 

John was surprised and impressed with the kid. “And of course, all the teachers.” 

“Yeah, I guess they must.” 

“Oh, you’re so fucked, Drake,” he said and let himself slide down the wall until his butt hit hardwood. He was suddenly very tired. 

Jubilee joined him on the floor. “Poor Bobby. He won’t even talk to Mike about it, will he? Boys are incomprehensible.” 

John banged the wall with the palm of his hand. “This is such bullshit. You know what I should do? I should fucking just tell everyone! Write ‘Drake is a Fag’ in lipstick on a mirror in the boys’ washroom.” 

She clucked her tongue reprovingly. “And that would help _how_?” 

John stared into her eyes and all the anger, fueled by secrecy and lies, flared up in him. “He’d have to stop fucking hiding! He’d have to admit who he is to everyone!” He felt his breath catch on something sharp. “He’d have to tell them what I mean to him.” 

Footsteps and voices. “We have a room prepared for you, Logan.” It was Doctor Grey and the Wolverine. _Logan?_

They passed by. Wolverine didn’t spare the two students a look, but Dr. Grey gave them a brief smile. 

John felt his energy return. He was on his feet in a second and moving after the pair who had vanished around the corner. 

Jubilee called out behind him. “Yo! Allerdyce! Where do you think you’re going?” 

John spun around and smiled as winningly as any Drake. “Me? I’m going hunting.” 

Jean walked the visitor up the stairs to a guest bedroom, and John trailed them, staying one turn of the corridor behind. He was pretty sure Wolverine was checking out her ass, which she was practically serving up in her tight red skirt. She vanished into the room with the man, and John waited a long time for her to emerge. _Hanky panky?_ he wondered. Summers showed up after a while and John ducked into the shadows. He hoped there would be some entertaining trouble. He liked the idea of someone pissing in Scott’s presumed territory. 

Finally, both teachers were gone, back to their room to fight or fuck. John felt his heart begin to beat faster. It had been a long time since he’d felt this particular kind of excitement, and he forced himself to act before he lost his nerve. He knocked decisively on the door and waited just a moment before Wolverine swung it open. The man’s every movement was coiled energy. John almost turned and ran as the dark eyes took his measure. The sheer energy of the physical presence was absolutely intoxicating. 

“What do you want?” the man said with no pretense of politeness. 

“Hey, just welcoming you to the School for Gutted Roosters, _Logan_ ,” John said with a smooth smirk and pushed past Wolverine into the spacious room. “Nice digs. The Ikea mirror is a bit cheesy, but I’m sure you’ll make the place your own soon enough. I’m John.” 

He turned and found the man with his arms crossed on his chest, not looking terribly amused. John felt sweat dripping down his side. He watched as Logan sniffed the air and made a low growl. 

“Forget it, kid. I’m not going to fight you.” 

John turned his real surprise into a show of surprise. “Fight you? Why would I want that? You could snap a guy like me in two.” 

“Exactly. You don’t strike me as the tough-guy type, but there’s always someone who thinks he’s man enough to take me.” He sniffed again, audibly. “And you got the scent on you.” 

John dared move towards him, letting his hips slide like he used to when he approached a customer’s car. “No, _Logan_ , you’re confusing your pheromones.” Now he was standing close enough that he could smell the Wolverine in return. Earth, fur, fire. “I was just wondering if maybe you could use a nice warm blowjob before bed. Help you sleep…” 

The growl, at close quarters, was bone-chilling. Suddenly strong hands were on his shoulders, and he was being pushed out the door. He stumbled a bit, but regained his balance. He turned, panting, eyes bright and, as Wolverine slammed the door, John called out, “Offer good anytime!” 

John could smell himself now. Arousal and fear. He rubbed his hard-on through his pants and then reached inside to adjust it. A chill went through him, and then he started to laugh, ever louder and wilder, until he was boogeying down the hall, howling like a coyote. 

 

*** 

 

Night descended on the mansion. 

Bobby walked the halls, thinking, avoiding contact whenever possible. He wondered if he would return to his room to sleep. 

He had spent the previous night in a spare bedroom, feeling a kind of pride in his right to come and go anywhere in the mansion he pleased. He had been the first of the new students and the first favorite of the teachers. Of Scott’s. Now, he no longer knew who he was. Just one of the crowd. Not the most powerful, not the brightest, not the most trusted. His room might have been a place of sanctuary in this trying time, if it didn’t contain the the nuclear core of his troubles: John Allerdyce, St. John, Pyro. The poet whore. The burning valentine. 

So he walked the corridors without destination, long past curfew, resting one place or another, trying to read a textbook only to find himself drifting off, and then awakened again by the acid memory of Scott in the Danger Room, Scott taking away the subbasement key. 

There had to be a way out! He found himself thinking of Rogue. He saw something of himself in her. Like the girl from Mississippi, he had fled home when his powers manifested. She’d put her boyfriend in a coma; he had taken out the neighbor’s dog. They had a bond; something to build on. A way out. 

John sat on his bed, taking stock. He had reached for the light when he came in, but decided darkness was safer. The crazy stunt with Logan had faded into a dull ache of regret. He was scared he’d only be able to soothe that ache with further acts of desperate escalation. He knew he had it in him to become something terrible. The thought filled him with excitement and sick fear. Better not to go there. Better to take stock, ground himself in what he already had. 

To begin with, he took stock of Bobby Drake’s body, seeing how much of it he had memorized over their six months of being lovers. There was the golden brown hair, which he loved to run his fingers through as they talked absently in the middle of the night. There were the perfect teeth which sometimes dared bite him. There was the shoulders and neck, like a work of Classical antiquity, carved from the finest marble, flexing and straining above him at the moment of orgasm. There were two balls and 10 toes and eyes which skittered like cornered animals when challenged, before they grew soft and brave and gave up their secrets. And that was where he found the true Bobby, the one that maybe no else in the world knew. Even the memory of the eyes hurt tonight, so he snapped on his bedside lamp to extinguish their intensity. 

Mountains of paper, notebooks, and scraps were piled on the floor beside his bed. He picked up the piles and arranged them carefully around himself, taking stock of his poetry. He asked himself what it was finally worth? Why did he bother capturing the moments of his life in words, like trapping flies in amber? What were words compared to lives? Merest imitation at best; at worst, an insult. He could destroy all his words in a moment and that would show Xavier, show them all. _Show them what?_ That he was willing to make sacrifices. He turned the pages under his fingers with great delicacy. They were his history and he couldn’t help it; he loved them. 

_Will Bobby return tonight?_ he wondered. 

Like the others, Bobby ran when the Wolverine shouted for help. Later, he remembered the helplessness he had felt, standing in the scrum of students, watching the terrible wounds on Rogue’s back, watching them heal, watching the scary mutant man fall unconscious at her touch. Bobby was ashamed to admit it, but in that moment he thought of her as a monster. The students huddled close and he wondered, _Where is John? Is he okay?_

John had fallen asleep in his clothes. He started awake and sat up when he saw the silhouette in the door. The figure didn’t move until he called its name, until he turned out the light and opened his arms. 

There was no way they could have reached each other with words that night; the only words they had left were recriminations, accusations, slanderous truths; but their bodies could still speak the secret language they had invented together. All the tenderness their words had forgotten, their bodies remembered. And it _was_ like a memory, even as it happened. Like something whose time was already past. 

 

*** 

 

Rogue was gone and Senator Kelly was at the mansion. These two facts weighed heavily on Kitty’s mind. She hadn’t spoken much to Rogue — in fact, Kitty wasn’t talking a lot to anyone lately — but she thought the girl was okay; tougher than she seemed under the Southern belle shtick. And now she was gone. _Poof_. 

The terrifying rumor was that Magneto had taken her, though the teachers weren’t telling the students anything. Kitty was frustrated at how they were being treated like kids. After all, it was one of them who had been abducted. But the X-Men were in bunker mode and she had to gather clues where she could. The Wolverine guy was especially pissed off; he looked ready to take anyone or anything apart to get Rogue back. Kitty wondered what it would be like to have a guardian like him. 

And Kelly! The idea that he was there with them was so surreal, she had to keep reminding herself it wasn’t a horror scenario she had dreamed. How could her ultimate boogey man have stepped out of the news and entered her sanctuary? It was too bizarre. It was infuriating! 

“Yes?” came the voice from the intercom by the subbasement elevator. 

“It’s me, Ms. Monroe,” she said. 

“Come down, Kitty; I’m in the office off the med lab.” The elevator door slid open and Kitty stepped in. As she walked the shiny corridors below, she observed everything with careful attention. She had always been fascinated by the existence of a high-tech world beneath the stodgy pretension of the mansion. She wished their classes were all down here. She phased her head through random doors to see what lay behind them, but the lights were all off, and Ms. Monroe would notice if she took too long to get to the med lab. 

Kitty found the beautiful, white-haired teacher in an office littered with Jean’s notes. Ms. Monroe was marking history papers on her laptop. “Hello, Kitty. I’m sorry to make you come down here for our meeting, but as you know, we’re having a very hectic day.” 

“Any news about Rogue?” 

“We’re working on it,” Ororo said, signaling that the matter would not be discussed further. “I want to talk with you about your proposed topic for your final paper.” She scrolled through a directory until she found the document. “‘A Mutant Holocaust?’ Provocative title. As I understand it, you want to compare circumstances in the early days of Nazi Germany with what is happening now in America.” 

“Right. I guess I’m asking if mutants are being as blind as the Jews were to what was coming.” 

Ororo crossed her hands in her lap and sat up very straight, thinking. “Already I see unfounded assumptions in your thinking. Were the Jews blind? Some were aware that genocide was part of the Nazi agenda. But how easy was it to leave, and what countries had opened their doors?” 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“I know, I’m just pointing out that you have be clear on all your facts before you state your thesis. The dissection of history requires a sharp scalpel.” 

“Med lab influencing your choice of imagery?” 

Ororo smiled. “Perhaps. Tell me the areas in which you will focus your research.” 

“Well, I have questions I want to answer. Was the anti-Jewish propaganda similar to the anti-mutant propaganda we’re hearing now? Was Hitler’s rhetoric similar to that of…” She paused. They both turned their heads in the direction of the dimly lit ward beyond the glass. Kitty could just make out a form on one of the examining tables. Why had he come here? Was it a trap? If it was true and he was somehow hurt or in trouble, why did the Professor take him in? She would have kicked his ass down the driveway, naming all the mutants who had been tortured and driven from their homes by his followers. 

“Please continue, Ms. Pryde,” Ororo said, pulling her attention back. 

She realized her heart was pounding. She forced herself to concentrate. “Um, what about Magneto and his manifesto? Was there a similar figure in Poland or Germany? Perhaps a resistance leader who came to symbolize the fight?” 

“Those are all very interesting ideas, but I think you need to focus. There’s enough scope there for a Masters thesis. Why don’t you find the one area you are most passionate about and build your paper there?” Ororo paused and looked at her with those large, warm eyes. “Are you sure this is a good topic for you take on, Kitty? You’ve seemed troubled, lately. Did your family lose relatives in the Holocaust?” 

Kitty dropped her eyes to the floor. “That’s not why… I mean, yes, but that’s not why I want to study this, I…” She looked up at her teacher again. “I can’t stop myself thinking about it. What would happen if… if they came for us? There would be no one to stand up for mutants. I have these dreams that they’re here, in the mansion, and we realize we acted too late.” 

Ororo put two hands on Kitty’s shoulders, and Kitty could feel her strength. “Listen to me, Kitty. The X-Men will defend their students, and believe me, we can. Furthermore, it is not true that no one will stand up for us. America is slow to change, that’s true, but it does change. Think of the Civil Rights Movement, think of the growing acceptance of lesbians and gays in our society.” 

“Think of the blacks and gays who are still murdered everyday.” 

“My child, we have to learn to both fight and believe. It is only with hearts and minds working in tandem that we have a chance. I give you permission to do this topic, but you must narrow your focus. Furthermore, you must be clear-minded. Do not use your studies as an excuse to reinforce your fears. You must also look for hope in the lessons of history.” 

Kitty felt the wall of skepticism grow within her, but she would fight it. She wanted to trust her teacher. “All right, Ms. Monroe. I’ll try.” 

“Thank you. Now, please go to the elevator and let yourself out. I have to remain on duty here.” 

Kitty walked out into the corridor, her mind buzzing with all they had discussed. She walked slowly, fingertips tracing the cool aluminum of the walls. 

Then she stopped, suddenly seized by an impulse that she could not resist. She looked back towards the door and, seeing no movement, phased through the wall and into the ward of the med lab. She ducked behind an empty bed and then rose slowly, looking out to where the figure lay. 

_You could do it,_ she thought. _What if this was 1935 and Adolph Hitler was lying there on that bed? Imagine if you… stabbed him, or cut his throat or something. Sure, it would be hard, but how many would have been saved?!_

She was sweating now. She noticed a tray of scalpels on a rolling table just by her right hand. It was as if destiny was prompting her. Would she know where to cut? What if her hands were shaking and… and he grabbed her? No! She would have to be strong! Quick! 

But she wasn’t a murderer! This was absurd. Still, history was made by the bold, the ones who weren’t afraid to strike! But what about the peacemakers who didn’t get their names in the books? Ms. Monroe always said they were just as important. All the women who continued to feed their children as bombs fell, all the people who hid the persecuted… 

A voice rose eerily from the darkness. “Hello?” Senator Kelly called out. She froze. “Is anyone there?” 

He sounded frightened, alone. Ororo appeared and talked gently to the man. He was the same Robert Kelly who had stood in public only yesterday and called for mutants to be tagged, marked as the Jews had been. How could she be kind to him? 

Kitty looked down at her shaking hand and found she was holding one of the scalpels. When had she picked it up? Shocked, she replaced it on the tray, concentrating so the blade wouldn’t clatter. She crawled back to the wall and phased through. 

She ran to the elevator, crying, unable to believe she had even contemplated the deed. _What have I become?_ she wondered. W _hat’s going to happen to us?_

 

*** 

 

A week of beautiful weather had given way to a weekend of rain in Westchester. Perhaps it was appropriate in light of all that had happened in the last 24 hours. Mike sat in the unnatural quiet of the rec room, reading through all the big national papers, shaking his head in disgust. 

“It’s not good,” he told John who sat beside him, reading Chuck Palahniuk. “Maybe the X-Men should have had a press conference… told everyone that they were the ones who stopped Magneto.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” John answered without looking up from his book. “Whether mutants are the good guys or the bad guys, we still get all the blame.” 

This answer infuriated Mike. First of all, he felt slighted by John’s use of “we.” Was he deliberately excluding Mike? Didn’t he know that Mike cared just as much, even if he wasn’t genus _homo superior_? But worse, it seemed like John didn’t even give a shit about public opinion and its effect on the lives of mutants across the country. Maybe he was depressed. Jubilee said that Bobby was messing with his mind. Mike knew he should say something, but he still didn’t feel like gay relationship counseling was something he could handle. 

Of course, everyone was depressed today. 

Andi Murakami entered the room, carrying a bright yellow raincoat over her arm. Other than that point of cheer, she seemed as sad and grey as the weather. She came and sat with the two boys, managing to produce a sad smile. “Hi Mike, John. How are you guys doing?” John grunted a minimal reply without looking up. 

“You read the news,” Mike said. “Did you come to see the Professor?” 

“Yes, I was just down in med lab.” She sighed. “Jean says he’s completely unresponsive, even telepathically. But she’s trying to reach him. She says not to give up hope.” 

Mike watched John begin to bite his nails and realized that he was only feigning his indifference. Xavier was practically a father figure to him. 

Andi looked around the empty room. “Wow, I’ve never seen the mansion this quiet.” 

“I think mostly people are hiding in their rooms.” Mike said. 

John gave a bitter sneer. “Listening to emo tunes on their iPods and eating comfort food.” 

“Your cynicism gets old pretty fast,” Mike snapped. John shrugged, picked up his book and went to lie on one of the couches. Mike’s head sagged. “I just feel so dumb, Andi.” 

“Why ‘dumb’?” 

“I don’t know. I guess with all the shit going down, I feel like I don’t belong here. It’s like I don’t have the right to worry about the Professor because I’m not a mutant. I feel like everyone’s looking at me and saying, ‘Why exactly is that _flatscan_ here?’” He dropped his head into his hands miserably. “Did you know I have to go back to Boston in September? The Professor let me stay this semester, but my parents want me home for senior year. I’ve been here six months and I was no help at all. I feel like a tourist.” 

“Look, I wish I could say you’re being ridiculous, but I know exactly what you mean. I worry that I look like some condescending anthropologist studying the natives.” She leaned in closer. “But, Mike, it’s not true. Everyone here wants the same thing: peaceful co-existence between mutants and non-mutants. They all know how far you’d go for the cause.” 

“Yeah, except I don’t shoot lasers out of my fingers or anything. I just make big speeches.” 

Andi laughed. “And I just make questionnaires that no one fills out. I’ll never get a meaningful sample for my thesis. What a joke, huh?” 

Something began to tickle at the back of Mike’s brain. “What if you, like, went all over the country and met mutant teens. They could fill out your questionnaire, and you could, um, do a sort of traveling youth group.” 

Andi shook her head. “It’s been hard enough to keep one going in New York City. But in Salt Lake or Fort Worth? I doubt mutant youth there would take the risk of being seen.” 

Points were connecting in Mike’s synapses. “What if… What if it was a concert? A concert by a mutant musician! My friend, Xeno is this amazing performer. He could, you know, do a performance at a community center wherever, and the kids would be inspired to show up. And you could be there to survey them.” 

Andi was blinking fast, and Mike could tell his idea was catching fire in her brain. “And maybe we could teach some of them the basic skills of peer counseling… Find a few youth in each city who would help form a local group.” 

“Sure! We’d be seeding the idea around the country, city by city!” Mike could see it clearly in his head: shy kids, daring to be seen in public as mutants for the first time, to meet each other, to find strength in numbers. Like the students at the mansion, like the ones at the Spiderhole in Boston. 

“Oh my God,” Andi exclaimed. “What if we got Tonio and Derek to do their act as well? It would be more like a festival. A traveling festival of mutant music!” 

Mike’s enthusiasm hit a wall. “Wait, no! They completely suck! They were a joke at the network protest!” 

“The audience liked them! Besides, it was their first performance! I’m sure if they practiced —” 

“They’d only suck 90 percent.” 

“What if your musician friend helped them? Worked on the music with them!” 

“But their rhymes were terrible!” 

“John! John could help rewrite them.” 

From behind the sofa back came a voice of protest. “What? No! Leave me out of this!” 

Mike jumped to his feet. In his head, the festival already existed, and he wasn’t going to let one cynical jerk with a broken heart fuck it up. He descended on John. “C’mon, this will only work if we pull together! Think of it as an exercise in poetry! Think of it as a chance for your words to find an audience.” 

“Get out of my face, Haddad!” John said by way of encouragement and stormed out of the room. 

Mike nodded and said to Andi, “It’s cool. Jubilee will make him do it.” 

Andi got up as if she were about to dance or leap in the air. “I can’t wait to tell the Professor our idea!” she enthused, and they both froze, slowly descending back into their chairs. “When… when he’s better,” she said. 

The rain fell against the windows. 

 

*** 

 

John stormed through the halls, clutching his book like a crucifix against any other vampires who wanted to feed off his life juices. He just wasn’t in the fucking mood for anyone’s good news future. Writing rap lyrics? C’mon! He wouldn’t be able to show his face in front of Xavier again. Not that it would be any of the old man’s business… 

He thought of the Professor lying unconscious in the med lab. Jean had let John down early that morning, but he hadn’t stayed long. He could barely look at the sunken figure lying on the bed, hooked up to machines that seemed to be stealing more from him than they were giving back. _Fuck, he looked like death!_ John thought. He knew his own dad had died of cancer when he was still a little boy, years after the man had left John and his mom to fend for themselves. John had gotten a bit obsessed about his dad’s death when he was 13, pestering his mom and the biology teacher at school with questions. “Does the cancer eat you like an alien? Like from the inside? How bad is the pain? What does morphine feel like?” 

All these morbid thoughts were irrelevant, though. Xavier wasn’t going to die. Simple as that. John could only take so much betrayal all at once! He climbed the stairs towards the dorms. 

Of course, some rap sort of pricked his ear pleasingly… the way the rhymes would go off-kilter, stacked up like a hundred plates carried by a waiter on roller-skates. He could see the appeal. Maybe he could look at Derek and Tonio’s performance on Youtube, see what the chances of humiliation were if he got involved. He was walking towards his room when he heard a commotion somewhere behind him. 

“Get the fuck out of my face or I will rip yours right off you!” 

Goosebumps ran down John’s back when he heard the voice. It sounded familiar, but the cadences and the voice itself were utterly wrong together. 

“Rogue, listen…” Bobby’s voice, full of false lightness, like when he was trying to talk John down from a black mood. “Hey, you’re just a bit confused… why don’t we go sit down…” 

They were coming his way. John ducked into the bathroom and opened the door just a crack to peer out. 

She burst around the corner with Bobby in hot pursuit. Rouge spun to a halt and glowered at him in a fighting stance. Despite the fact that he had 10 inches on her, she looked formidable. She wasn’t the same girl he had known for the past three days: she was someone else, someone you didn’t mess with. She was Wolverine. “I’m warning you, bub,” she growled. “You’re _this_ close to getting some fresh holes in your torso!” 

She raised a fist as if it had long claws growing from it. Bobby flinched, but held his ground. His bravery was kind of impressive, actually. 

“Rogue, honey,” he cooed. _Honey?_ “It’s me Bobby. You don’t want to do this. It’s just ’cause you absorbed so much of Logan, right Marie?” 

_Marie?_ John wondered. _Is that her real name? And HONEY?_ But hearing her name seemed to have the intended effect. John watched as her posture changed completely. Rogue reached out for Bobby in a gesture of apology or misery, and he jerked back from her lethal hand, even though she was wearing her gloves. She dropped her head into her hands and cried. There were mutations John envied, but hers wasn’t one. 

Bobby gathered the weeping girl into his arms, being careful only to touch clothing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she moaned, and he cooed at her that it would be okay, that everything would be okay. John watched this drama with confusion. This was the Bobby he admired — ready to help with a generosity and open-heartedness that John could not imagine in himself. At the same time, he didn’t like it. Why wasn’t it him in Bobby’s arms? Why wasn’t it Bobby saying “I’m sorry” to him? 

Bobby steered Marie towards the girl’s wing with his arm over her shoulders, her head resting on his chest. _So fucking cozy,_ John thought and cursed himself for a jealous fool. Hadn’t Bobby returned to his bed last night? _But it wasn’t warm, was it?_ It had been a desperate explosion of need, each one trying to find solace in the other’s body, two storm-tossed ships tied together, but still at the mercy of the waves. And Bobby had been gone again when John awoke the next day, already doing laps around the back field like he was still trying to outrun that storm. 

John went back into the bathroom to take a leak. As he washed his hands, he looked at his froofy haircut in the mirror again. It had to go. Trying to be someone different was Bobby’s game, not his. 

He left the bathroom and was heading down the hall to his room when Doug called him. The door was open to the room the boy shared with Jones. The two were huddled like twin Frankensteins of the wired world around the terrifying workstation they had built. Peripherals of all descriptions coiled like mating snakes and met in routers that were duct-taped together and labeled in marker with obscure names (“tinMan07-b1”) and decorated with crude cartoons of chicks with gigantic tits. 

Two enormous flat screen monitors showed various consoles and apps John couldn’t even name. On the right-hand screen was a freeze-frame of Bobby in the subbasement. 

“What’s this?” John asked warily, remembering when Jones had caught him and Bobby on security cams back in the fall. But Jubilee said he hadn’t told Doug anything… 

“Footage of the intruder who freaked Rogue out on Friday,” Doug answered. So far, Jones hadn’t even looked John’s way, he was staring at the screens with his mouth open, blinking windows open and closed. 

John was confused. “But it’s Bobby!” 

Doug smiled and nodded. “Watch. Jones, play it from 00:15:35:24.” No response. “Jones!” 

Jones’s mouth snapped closed and he turned to Doug. “What? Oh, hey, John.” 

“Hi, kid.” 

“00:15:35:24,” Doug repeated. “And bump up the gamma 9%.” 

Jones blinked. The video scrolled back and John watched as Bobby emerged from the elevator, a small figure in the distance, quickly growing as he approached the camera. 

“The cam’s above Cerebro’s doors,” Doug explained. 

Something was wrong with the way Bobby was walking. It was wrong the same way Rogue’s body language had been wrong when she was channeling Wolverine. This Bobby was all poise and economy, his shoulders somehow looser and more sensual. He came to halt, filling the screen from the waist up; and then he changed. The metamorphosis to the blue, fringed body started from below, the head transforming last. Jones blinked and the picture froze. 

John felt his stomach lurch. The change was repellant, though the final figure was as gorgeous as she was terrifying. A Cirque du Soleil nightmare. 

“Mystique,” Jones said. “She’s one of Magneto’s main people. You can find some cool video of her online, but its crappy quality. I can’t wait to post this!” 

Doug rolled his eyes. “You can’t, dummy, it’s secure X-footage. We’d be so busted so fast.” 

Jones snorted and giggled. “Hey, hey, watch this!” he said, excited. He blinked and the security cam ran backwards, freezing on the last stages of the transformation: Bobby’s head on Mystique’s curvaceous blue body. All three boys cracked up. John thought how Bobby would die if he saw it, but it was so funny. Especially after Drake had bugged him for camping it up in front of Rogue. _Who’s the drag queen now, asshole?_ John thought. 

Jones blinked several times and John watched the image duplicated and re-opened instantly in another window. Text typed itself across the picture: “Playmate of the Year!!!!” Their laughter climbed higher. Then an email client flashed open, a new letter window appeared, complete with the doctored image and, just as fast, it was gone. 

John stopped laughing. “Wait… What did you just do?” 

Jones was giggling, slurping back a drop of drool that tried to escape his mouth. “Nothing.” 

Doug, still breathless with laughter, gave his shoulder a whack. “Jones! That wasn’t cool!” 

John grabbed Jones by the shoulder and spun him around violently in his swivel chair. “Who did you just send that fucking message to?!” 

Jones’s eyes went wide. “Uh, everyone. It’s just a joke.” 

“You little shit! Don’t you know how that’ll make Bobby feel?” 

Jones looked like he’d been slapped. “But John… I didn’t mean anything. It’s just so… funny… I thought —” 

“After how nice Bobby’s always been to you, you totally humiliate him in front of everyone?! And you know what he’s going through! You know he’s in trouble with Scott and everything!” John watched tears appear in the boy’s eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had been laughing like an idiot, too, enjoying Bobby’s perfect little image made foolish. But he didn’t want this, didn’t want Bobby brought down this way. 

Doug tugged Jones’s sleeve. “Get up, let me do something.” Jones got meekly to his feet as Doug spun the chair around and began typing rapidly, cutting and pasting bits of code from a directory named “uSEFUL.” In under a minute he was finished, and John watched uncomprehending as Doug opened a console and typed code with bewildering speed and precision. He hit the “enter” key with finality and stood up. 

“Okay, I wrote a virus that should destroy the email everywhere on the server. So, unless someone saw it right away, we should be okay.” 

John let go a long breath. “Thank you.” He looked at Jones who was staring at the floor, devastated. He put an arm around him and ruffled his hair. “Kid, just because you _can_ doesn’t mean you should.” Jones snorted back his snot. “Listen, if I burned this place down as often as I thought about it, the insurance payments would kill us.” 

The boys both smiled at him with shy relief, like he was cool. If only they knew how pathetic he was as soon as Bobby figured into the equation. “Still,” he said, “it _was_ a damn funny picture…” 

 

*** 

 

“I think the rain’s stopping, Bobby!” Rogue said with a smile. 

“Yeah, you’re right, the sun’s even coming out.” They were sitting in the gazebo by the pond, just quietly letting time pass as Rogue found her way back to herself. It was the most peaceful hour Bobby had spent in a long time. 

“Do you think there’s a rainbow around somewhere?” she asked, jumping to her feet and running from the gazebo to look out between the trees. 

Bobby smiled as he watched her. He felt light. Scott thought he was punishing him, taking away his keys to the subbasement, but he was freeing him, too. His life had become a series of traps, and he had stepped into them willingly. He had broken his back to meet Scott’s expectations. And John! With his sneering and accusations, John made him feel like there was something wrong with him, like he should say or be something else. But there wasn’t anything wrong with him! Here he was with Rogue… Marie… and everything was easy. 

She turned to him. “I want to take off my shoes and walk in the wet grass. Can we do that?” 

“Sure,” he responded and she smiled like she had found an accomplice in crime. 

Carrying their shoes, they walked through the field, the sun glinting off the wet grass. She grew serious. “I want to apologize for everything I put you through today, Bobby. When I think of the things I said to you…” She looked away, embarrassed. “But it wasn’t me! It was _him!_ Inside me! 

“Please don’t feel bad, Rogue. It’s not always easy having powers like ours.” 

“Well, then at least let me thank you. You’re a true gentleman!” 

He laughed with pleasure. “I don’t even know what that means.” 

She stopped and touched his arm with her gloved hand. This time, he wasn’t afraid. “It means I can count on you.” 

“You can. I promise, I’ll watch out for you.” He hadn’t meant the words to sound so serious, but now that he’d said them, he felt their weight. The weight didn’t scare him, though; didn’t make him feel crushed like… like all those other, thornier expectations. It was easy. 

He was surprised to see Rogue blush and look down at the ground. “I believe that, Bobby,” she said. “I believe you will.” 

They walked in silence. The trees were alive with birdsong, and the green of spring was blinding. Bobby looked towards the windows of the mansion and wondered who might be watching, how the story of his barefoot walk with Rogue might spread. Then he turned and looked back at the glade. His eyes had grown accustomed to the sun and he could just make out the gazebo in the shade. It seemed to him for a second that he saw someone sitting there — John, as he had been two days before, watching him, his blue eyes red with fury. And then the gazebo burst into flames, a horrible conflagration that engulfed it in a second, the flames spreading to the surrounding trees. 

Bobby’s heart pounded. He closed his eyes hard, and when he opened him them again, the gazebo was still there. Whole, unharmed, deserted. 

“Are you coming?” Rogue asked. 

He turned back to her with a smile. “Yeah, I’m here.” 


	24. The Rain in Hadrian’s Soul

“Scoot over, let me in.” 

“Bobby! What time is…? Fuck, Drake, it’s two in the morning! Where you been?” 

“Just for a minute, let me… Why are you wearing underwear, John?” 

“Protection against psycho iceboys. You been out _not-kissing_ your little Marie…? Ohhhhhhhhh, fuck, yeah. Touch that…” 

“You like it, don’t you? Kiss me.” 

“Wait a minute, Bobby, you think you can treat me like dirt and then just…. Ah, shit… yeah, touch it again. Put your finger in.” 

“Mmmmm.” 

“nnnhhHHH.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Look at you, Drake. You’re a slutburger with a side of fries. You need this. Admit it.” 

“Shut up, shut up, John just… ahh, fffffuckk!” 

“Every night, Bobby. What does that tell you?” 

“Shut up, shut up.” 

 

*** 

 

“We got the Dazzler! The Dazzler’s going to be part of the tour!!” 

Mike shouted out his news as he ran into the cafeteria, turning the heads of every student chowing down on breakfast. For once he didn’t mind the spotlight. The announcement set off a round of excited chatter in the room as Mike headed to the table where Jubilee was holding a place for him. 

Terry sighed at the next table. “Oh God, do you know her song ‘Secret’? It was totally my theme song this winter.” 

“Who’s the Dazzler?” Fred asked. “Are they, like, a band?” 

Sam was outraged. “Gawd, do you only listen to your Dad’s Led Zeppelin albums, Dukes? The Dazzler is this amazing trip hop chick. Her last album was on every cool critic’s top 10 last year.” 

Fred scowled and stuffed French toast into his mouth. “Not mine.” 

Mike said, “She’s more than that. Her name is Alison Blair and she’s a mutant.” 

“Are you serious?!” Jubilee screamed. “Oh, shit, I get it now. All that stuff in ‘Blue Tomorrow’ about ‘trusting you enough to tell you.’ That song makes me cry every time.” 

Mike’s smile could have lit up Manhattan during a blackout. “Yup, I’m serious. And Professor Xavier _knows her_.” 

“X knows everyone,” Dani told Mike with an insider’s confidence. The crowd around the table was growing. 

Mike spotted Bobby and Rogue entering the cafeteria and waved them over. “We got her, Bobby! The Dazzler’s coming on the tour!” 

“Amazing!” Bobby shouted and held up a hand for Mike to high-five. 

“Who?” Rogue asked, her arm slipping around Bobby’s waist. Mike did a bit of a double-take at the intimate gesture and he looked at Jubilee. Naturally, his girlfriend hadn’t missed the moment. Mike could see her carefully filing away the information for later use. 

Bobby turned to Rogue and said, “She this amazing musician named Alison Blair. The Professor said he’d ask her to join the mutant youth tour.” 

Mike nodded enthusiastically. “Well, he did and get this: she was planning to come out publicly as a mutant when her new CD was released. X told her about the tour and she signed on immediately.” He put his elbows on the table and gazed into space, imagining the big, beautiful amendment to the tour poster: _Featuring… The Dazzler!_ “So many more kids will come out to see us now,” he said. 

Dani added, “And she’ll be an inspiration to everyone. She’ll show them you don’t have to hide who you are.” 

“I can’t wait to tell Andi,” Mike said. 

Terry sighed. “You are _so_ lucky, Jubilee! You’re going to spend the whole summer touring around with Alison Blair. You’ll be like _best friends!”_ Her eyes widened. “Wait! Does that mean she’ll be coming to the mansion? Are we going to actually meet the Dazzler?!” 

Mike had to admit it — being the bearer of good news was sweet. “Of course. She’ll be here for the kick-off party in two weeks!” 

Everybody covered their ears and ducked in anticipation; Terry’s squeals of delight tended to bring down plaster. But she just gave them a disgusted look and said, “Oh come on! I _can_ control myself.” 

“Hey, where’s John?” Rogue asked. Mike turned to look at Bobby at the exact moment Jubilee did. Bobby was startled by the coordinated attention and hastily disengaged himself from Rogue’s arm. 

“Uh, he’s over in the corner there, working on rhymes for Derek and Tonio.” 

Rogue looked across the room to where John sat alone, bent low over a notebook, his head bobbing to the beats in his headphones, his mouth auditioning sounds. “Well, shoot, Bobby honey! He doesn’t even have a tray!” She gave Bobby a slap on the chest. “You shouldn’t let your roommate miss breakfast. He’s skinny enough as it is! Bring him a bagel or some oatmeal!” 

“Okay uh, honey, I will!” Bobby promised and scooted off to the serving station. It was Mike’s turn to get slapped in the chest — Jubilee, making sure he hadn’t missed the exchange of endearments. 

Despite the deepening mystery of Bobby, John and Rogue, Mike still felt elated. Andi was coming to Westchester later that day to meet with him and the Professor, but he had been in touch with her almost hourly for the last few weeks. They already had five cities confirmed for the tour which would begin in June. The first dates would take place on weekends, but once the school term ended, they were hoping to do a city every few days through July and the first half of August. He was nervously confident of their success. 

Actually, if anyone was nervous it was Xeno Evil, Mike’s sensei in all things. Although Xeno had played a few local gigs in Boston with various bands, playing as a solo artist on the tour was a big step for him. Xeno had said “no way” then “yes” then “maybe” then “definitely.” Within a couple of days of accepting the gig, he had called to say he had a new drummer and they were going to “rock some shit.” 

Reluctantly, Xeno had even agreed to coach Derek and Tonio who, despite their terrifying lack of experience, were entirely sure they were going to knock the world on its ass with their mutant hip-hop. And now the Dazzler would headline! Mike pictured the excitement of the summer, the adventure, and the romance, too, since Jubilee would be with him everyday. His life suddenly seemed like a fairy tale. 

His mind was ringing with a thousand details as he walked to the rec room after breakfast to watch the morning news with the current affairs gang. In fact, he had been too busy to join them much in the last month, and felt relieved to be returning to the fold this morning. As soon as he arrived, he sensed a certain tension in the group. Clarice, David and Doug were leaning towards the set, very focused, and Kitty had actually left her seat to kneel on the floor closer to the screen. 

“The tremor caused a landslide that closed part of the highway,” said a reporter with windblown hair, squinting against flying dust. “Military personnel from nearby Fort Eugene are, apparently, working on the clean up, and soldiers are turning back traffic some 10 miles down the road.” 

“That’s the third one,” Kitty said. “Third one in a month.” 

Doug added, “And they aren’t reporting it, but the other two were also near military bases.” 

Mike felt like he was missing something. “What do the tremors mean? Is it a mutant?” 

Doug gave him a sort of warning look, but Kitty spoke up in a strong voice, without emotion. “It’s Lance. This has something to do with Magneto’s people.” 

_Lance Alvers!_ Mike thought. _The student who joined Magneto_. He tried to remember Jubilee’s primer on mansion dramas. Kitty was in love with Lance. Jubilee also theorized that Bobby was not neutral about the guy either. Mike had never even heard Bobby admit to being gay, and he felt really creepy knowing this much gossip about his love life. He asked out loud, “Is Magneto giving orders from jail? How could he?” 

Clarice brought her legs up into lotus position on the couch. “Maybe he’s not. Maybe someone should check with Senator Kelly’s office… see if _he’s_ booked the day off.” It was a frequent game of speculation in the group: how much was Mystique doing behind the scenes in Washington to further her cause? Or was it their cause, too? It was frankly hard not to cheer for the Brotherhood sometimes. But how big was Magneto’s Brotherhood, and how well could it function without its leader? 

David muted the sound as a farming feature came on. “If they _are_ targeting military installations, what exactly are they looking for?” 

Mike shook his head. “Do you think the X-Men know anything, Kitty?” 

He looked over at her and was dumbfounded to find her crying. Hadn’t she been fine a minute earlier? 

“Hey, are okay?” he asked uselessly. 

Kitty stood up and grabbed her books from the couch. “Excuse me,” she said and hurried from the room. The boys all looked towards Clarice because when a girl ran out crying, protocol was for another girl to chase after her. 

But Clarice didn’t ever do anything expected. She just sat there, rubbing the upholstery of the couch like it was a cat, eyes glued to the TV as silent torrents of grain poured from a silo. She noticed them looking at her, and neatly unfolded her legs, picked up her schoolbag and stood up. “Time for class.” 

“Alleyne, turn up the sound,” came a voice from behind them, and Mike turned to find John standing behind the couch like a ghost. When had he come in? Mike turned back to the TV to see what had caught his attention. Footage of a car wreck, an inset of a man and woman in their 20s, smiling, caught in a moment of unguarded happiness. A family barbecue? A night out with friends? 

David un-muted the broadcast and handed John the remote as he left the room with Doug and Clarice. 

“Just a week before their wedding, a week before beginning a lifetime at each other’s sides, the popular Sacramento couple now find themselves side-by-side in twin hospital beds, both comatose. Doctors say they could wake at any moment, or spend months — even years — unconscious to the world around them.” 

John snapped off the TV. “Now that’s a relationship without complications.” 

Mike laughed. “I guess no one ever says anything stupid.” 

“Even the relatives are happy.” 

Mike grabbed his books and stood up. “How do you figure that?” 

“They have something to cling to. Bloody, wheezing life. Their kids are lying there together, married by tragedy. They’re the perfect image of eternal romantic perfection. Romeo and Juliet. Nothing but a symbol of tragic youth and the possibility of blissful resurrection. So much easier than cranky, conscious kids.” 

They were alone now in the room, which meant they were late for class, but Mike sensed that it was important for him to stay and talk. “Unlike, say, you and Bobby,” he said. _No sense bullshitting_. 

John scowled at him. “So, what? It’s finally not a forbidden subject for you? Drake’s little childhood buddy is ready to talk about reality?” 

Mike was taken aback by John’s bitter tone. “It was never a forbidden topic. I just… I didn’t know what I could say —” 

“Nothing to say. Bobby’s just being a jerk. It’s Rogue I feel sorry for. In a couple of weeks he’ll wake up and stop this charade. Mademoiselle Marie won’t know what hit her.” 

Mike was startled. He started to say something but bit his lip. 

“What?” John demanded. 

“Well, if you’re sure… But it doesn’t look that way from where I stand, man. Sorry.” 

“You don’t know, man.” 

“They hang off each other all over the school, John. They call each other _‘honey’!_

John was angry now. “You don’t know, okay? Just because your girlfriend has proclaimed herself news source supreme doesn’t mean you know everything that goes on.” He turned to leave and Mike reached out and grabbed his arm. 

“All right, I don’t know, don’t fucking walk out on me, John.” 

John spun around, shaking off Mike’s hand and almost spat the words into his face. “You don’t know who’s still sucking down my jizz every single fucking night, asshole!” 

Mike’s ability to hear about this topic hit its limit. “And I don’t want to know, okay?!” he shouted back. 

They turned away from each other in mutual embarrassment, but after a few seconds Mike found himself laughing. “Shit, dude. I thought you poets said everything metaphorically.” 

“Yeah, well…” 

“Like you could have said _‘the bee still supping summer’s nectar’_ or something.” 

That earned him a smile. “Poetry’s overrated,” John muttered. He opened his notebook and tore a page loose. “Speaking of which, here.” He handed Mike the paper before turning again to leave. 

“Aren’t you coming to History?” 

“Taking the day off. Give Ororo my regards.” He vanished down the corridor and Mike felt a stab of worry for him. It wouldn’t help him to give up on school now. _What would it feel like if Jubilee was slipping away from me?_ he wondered. _Like the world was broken. Like gravity had declared itself optional._

He looked down at the paper in his hands, at the neat, urgent writing, scribed in separate colors for each rapper: Tonio in purple, Derek in scarlet. 

_Born red as fire_  
 _In desire’s kitchen_  
 _Bitchin’ ‘bout a world where justice is a liar…_

Mike looked up from the page, but John was gone. 

 

*** 

 

“John’s too cool for school,” sang a little theme song in his head as he moved down the hall, but it was as lame a bit of logic as it was a verse. He wasn’t self-deluding enough to believe for a second that he was doing anything but hiding. He checked his gait: more scuttle than strut. More cockroach than panther. No, the truth was he didn’t want to see or be seen. Since Rogue’s arrival, everything had been making him paranoid. He felt like an outsider again, like the weird little street kid that everyone was suspicious of. 

Bobby and Rogue. They were everywhere, like an awful summer hit song you can’t get out of your head, like a tooth-achingly cute poster that’s taken over every bus shelter in town. Bobby and Rogue, in all his classes, at every meal — always together and looking so damned pleased about it. 

Still, he clung to the version of events he had presented to Mike: Bobby was in a temporary freak out after Scott caught them doing it, using Rogue to show the world that he wasn’t a big ol’ fag. Maybe John was being too hard on him. Maybe he needed to show Bobby support so he’d feel safe enough to be himself. 

He suddenly staggered and grabbed at the wall for support as a bolt of pain skewered his forehead. “The fuck!?” he cried out loud, but then the pain was gone. _What was that?_ he wondered, annoyed. _My realist kicking my romantic in the ass?_

Who was he kidding? Mike was obviously right: Bobby was done with him. And everyone who knew was laughing. John, the street whore breaking his heart over an Abercrombie joke like Bobby Drake, the poster boy for mutant normalcy; the “got milk” ad of _homo superior_. 

_Love is heroin_ , he taunted himself. _Even when it doesn’t get you high anymore, you crawl around on all fours, looking for particles between the floorboards, licking the empty spoon till you’re gagging on the taste of metal._

_John Allerdyce doesn’t need love._

“Love is a little bird in a tree,” came a familiar voice, very close, very wrong. “In a tree full of hungry predators.” 

John spun around, unnerved, and there, in her darkened office was Jean Grey. “Oh, hey,” John greeted her, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “Why are you sitting in the dark, Dr. Grey?” 

“Headache,” she answered and her voice was odd. Rough, reverberant. John’s hand flew to his temples as his own headache twinged again. Telepathic whispers filled the air around him: _…in a place without limits… …a cage of thorns… …life incarnate…_

Then the whispers were gone along with the pain. In their place, a terrible anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he approached her open door and peered into the darkness. He could see her hair, visibly red even in the dim light. She was behind her desk, her head lowered on her crossed arms. Was it his imagination, or was there a faint glow in the cradle of those arms? 

“Are you okay, Dr. Grey?” he asked and his voice came out shaky. 

She raised her head and he jumped back a step. Her eyes were clearly visible in the darkness, as if they were their own source of light. “I’m wonderful, John,” she said and laughed. The laugh sounded almost normal, and John began to respond to it, to breathe again, when he noticed that the air was full of shadowy objects. Family planning pamphlets, boxes of bandages — all floating tranquilly. A stethoscope drifted near him and suddenly raised its head and hissed like a snake. He cried out in surprise and Jean laughed again. “Sorry, John,” she said, reassuring. “Just having some fun.” 

The whispers in his head again. _…blaze… …hunger…_

“Can I, uh, turn on the light maybe?” John asked. 

Her answer was curt and hard: “It hurts my head. Don’t.” So he stood there in the doorway, at a loss until she spoke again. “Bobby’s gone to ground, John. He’s afraid of what’s inside him.” 

John was shocked that she was speaking so candidly. Deep in the shadows, something glass tinked against something metal as they floated through air on their little holiday from gravity. Everything was really wrong. 

“And you’re wondering if he’ll let himself see it… the truth inside. The power. You’re wondering if you’ll get him back.” 

“Yeah…” John breathed hoarsely. 

“That depends, little fire, that depends. Does he have the strength? Some people _like_ their cages. Jean does.” 

_Oh shit. I want to get out of here._

“Do you feel it inside you, John? Do you feel the fire?” 

He did. It was there in his belly. Something new: a source, a pool. _Oh, God…_

“You could grab it, you know… release it as you’ve always dreamed.” 

He knew she was telling the truth. The source of fire he’d always longed for… rising from inside him, from himself instead of some damn lighter. No more a half-mutant, no more a cripple with a crutch. The primordial fire, his to command. 

“You can grab it, little fire, and you can burn it all. Scorch the earth and everyone who caged your soul!” 

“St. John, please stand back and let me through.” The voice shocked him back to reality. It was Professor Xavier, whose wheeled approach he hadn’t even heard. 

“What…? Yeah, sure.” He jumped aside. “We were just talking, sir. Dr. Grey was… talking—” 

Xavier ignored him. “Jean, listen to me,” he said, his voice somber. The air seemed to grow thick and the psychic whispers multiplied — a million voices whose collective cacophony was the scream of the twister before it takes your home. The old man said no more, wheeling into her office, the door slamming closed behind him. 

A final bolt of pain shot through John’s head and he staggered against the wall again, feeling like he was going to puke. Then it was gone. The pain, the whispers, the fire in his belly. 

“What the fuck?” he moaned and then found himself running down the corridor, and out through the side door of the mansion. And he wanted to keep running, because he’d seen the void. He’d seen the fire that could consume everything in its unrelenting anger. He’d seen the part of himself he feared above all things. 

 

*** 

 

“Oh, fuck, Johnny, that was… whoa.” 

“Wait till you get my bill.” 

“That’s not funny. Hey, Rogue and me are going into New York on Saturday. She wants you to come with us.” 

“Oh she does, does she? But _you_ don’t. You’re not so sure.” 

“No, of course I want you. _We!_ We want you to come with us.” 

“Oh, so you two are a ‘we’ now. Great.” 

“Stop twisting my words, Allerdyce!” 

“Words are all I got, Drake.” 

 

*** 

 

They entered the cafeteria during breakfast, sizing up the terrain like two lions. Bobby laughed at first, but they gave him a look that would freeze an antelope, and his laughter stopped. Derek was dressed in a white muscle shirt and white pants that made his bright red skin practically glow. Layers of faux-gold hip-hop jewelry and black high-tops completed the ensemble. Tonio was dressed even more extravagantly in black with a long purple fake-fur coat over it. His oversized, mutant eyes were hidden behind enormous black-on-black sunglasses with wide silver arms. 

Bobby got up and moved to the pair, deciding it was ridiculous to be intimidated by two people he’d known for a year, with whom he’d shared secrets at countless mutant youth meetings. “Hey guys, welcome to Westchester. Come and have some breakfast and I’ll show you your room after…” They stared at him coldly and he found himself stammering, “Uh, it’s Bobby. Bobby Drake…” 

Rogue appeared at his side smiling broadly. “Hey, Bobby honey, introduce me to the mean mutant crew.” 

“Hey, pretty girl,” Tonio said with a leer. “You know where we can find Haddad? We have some important issues to settle.” 

Derek crossed his arms over his chest. “Important _performer_ issues.” 

Bobby scowled. Who did these guys think they were? Rogue was looking around for Mike when he suddenly entered the cafeteria, reading from a thick pile of pages on a clipboard. 

“Yo! Haddad!” Tonio shouted and Mike looked up and did a double take at their outfits. 

“Hey, guys,” he said with a smile. “That what you’re wearing on stage? Killer! You’re really getting into the spirit.” 

Derek shook his head. “This is not about spirit, my man! We have some serious contract demands to lay down.” 

“Damn straight,” Tonio concurred. 

Mike looked not the least bit intimidated, which made Bobby feel extra stupid. Mike tilted his head (did he realize that his Mohawk made that move look really impressive?), gave the pair a subtly pained looked and said, “Go ahead.” 

The cafeteria had quieted as if the show had already begun. Tonio cleared his throat. “First, on all dates of the tour, we get our own dressing room with a catered menu of our own choosing.” 

“No,” Mike said. “Next.” 

Derek took a step towards him and placed a red finger on his chest. “We get top billing on all flyers, posters, as well as any digital promotional material.” 

“Right,” Mike replied. “Ahead of internationally-acclaimed recording artist, the Dazzler. I don’t think so.” 

Derek backed off a step and shot Tonio a furious look. They seemed to exchange bad vibes for a few seconds before Tonio spat out. “I want a pair of reflective, light-diffusing contact lenses.” 

Bobby, who was enjoying his front row seat at their humiliation, actually laughed which earned him waves of hating from the would-be stars. 

Mike paused. “So you mean, like, you’d be able to take your glasses off and the audience could see your eyes?” 

“Yeah!” Tonio barked. “It’s bullshit that I should have to hide my own mutation on a mutant music tour! It’s a sign of oppression and —” 

“Yes, I totally agree,” Mike nodded. “I’m going to see if we can budget for that. You’ll be way more effective on stage if your eyes are visible.” 

Tonio looked at Derek, a bit confused and then turned back to Mike. “Exactly!” 

Derek slapped Mike on the shoulder. “There you go, Haddad, not so hard to be cooperative if you just try.” 

“I’m going to ask the Professor about the contacts. I need you guys ready for rehearsal at one o’clock. Xeno will be here with the sound system and we all need to get familiar with it.” 

“Riiiiight,” Tonio said in a long exhalation. 

Mike shot them a look. “One sharp.” And having established his status as king lion of the pride, he turned on his heel and walked off, eyes again buried in his clipboard. 

Derek scowled after him, but then suddenly registered Bobby’s existence. With a warm smile he said, “My man, Drake! Good to see you again.” 

Bobby grinned at Rogue, enjoying his moment of reflected stardom. “Yeah, Derek, I’m really excited to see you guys perform tomorrow.” 

“I’m sure! Hey, we’re gonna sit down here with the pretty lady. Why don’t you bring us some breakfast like you said.” 

Bobby felt his face grow hot, but then Rogue put a gloved hand on his arm and told the boys, “I’ll help Bobby with the trays. So nice to meet y’all.” She shepherded Bobby gracefully away, and he turned to smirk at the arrogant pricks. _Who’s got the pretty lady now?_

 

*** 

 

Without a doubt, it was the most excitement the mansion had known in months. The level of foment and expectation was building and building towards the next day’s concert, which was why John was hiding out in his dorm, trying to concentrate. He had been late or absent from too many classes lately, but this was important. If he could just get the last of the problem lines unkinked, he would feel confident enough to call the poem finished and ready for submission. 

The telepathic call made him jump. _*John, why are you not in class?*_

“Shit,” he muttered, suddenly losing the exact combination of words he’d finally arrived at. He could feel the pressure of Professor Xavier’s presence in his head like a storm front. 

_*‘Descent into ridicule’ is the line you are searching for, I believe. In any case, you are supposed to be in Dr. Grey’s biology class.*_

John tossed his pen across the room in annoyance. He centered himself as best he could and projected his thoughts the way he’d been taught. _*She said I could stay in my room and write, Professor.*_

_*You’re not skilled enough in telepathic contact to lie convincingly. Please go now.*_

_*But Professor, I’m almost done with this revision. The submission deadline for The Harvest is this week, and I still need to get your feedback!*_

John might have been new to the subtleties of telepathic communication, but there was still something strange about the pause that followed. 

_*Yes, well, we will discuss the matter after my English seminar. I am informing Dr. Grey that you will be there in five minutes. Please don’t make a liar out of me.*_

The storm front receded, and John dropped back on his bed. “Shit, shit, shit.” He read through the poem one more time and then jumped up to grab his books. Life in Bobby-and-Rogue-land hadn’t grown any easier, and he had to brace himself just to leave his room. He was amazed and appalled at how… _tentative_ he’d become lately. He second-guessed every line of poetry he wrote, doubted the sincerity of his friends, wondered why he even deserved a place at the school. 

Furthermore, he was unnerved every time he crossed paths with Dr. Grey. The Professor had taken him aside after the horrific encounter with her and explained that the emotional lives of telepaths often hit bumpy patches. He advised John not to say anything about the incident… to spare Dr. Grey any embarrassment. Why did it seem like the old man was hiding something darker? Or was that just more of John’s paranoia? Truth be told, skipping her class now would be less traumatic than sitting there, remembering the waves of pain and panic, feeling the fire within him, the unspeakable _possibility_ of it! 

He opened the door of the lab, and there they were: the happy couple, heads together, bent over a half-dissected octopus. He cringed when everybody turned to watch him skulk in. Unreliable street kid. Truant. Without meeting her eyes, he muttered an apology to Dr. Grey and found a place with Terry and Jubilee, his stomach turning when the formaldehyde stench of their test subject reached his nose. 

As usual, he felt a better in English class where he was widely regarded as the best student. Everybody knew he was the Professor’s pet, and while that felt a bit creepy sometimes, today he treasured the security. The only hard thing about English was putting up with the cretinous stupidity of some of his fellow students. 

“And so, when Frost says ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ we have to, uh, remember…” Sam struggled to find his conclusion. “…that, y’know, it’s better to come together, not be separated. Although, I’ll tell you, sometimes without those fences, your neighbors can forget who owns what, if you know what I mean. In my experience.” 

“Thank you, Sam,” the Professor said with a smile as if Sam’s talk had actually been the least bit coherent. He was seated in his wheelchair at the back of the class for the presentations. “And now, John, would you please introduce us to the poem you’ve brought in.” 

From his bag, John pulled the hardcover book he’d found in Xavier’s library, and made his way to the front. All eyes were on him. He realized with a shock that his hastily inserted bookmark was a discarded condom wrapper that had ended up under his bed. He quickly tucked it away in his pocket. “Okay, um, this is a bit long, but it’s worth listening to. It was written by a Portuguese poet named Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa in 1918. It’s called ‘Antinous.’ Antinous was this young guy in ancient Greece who was the lover of the great general, Hadrian.” 

He turned to look at Bobby who had grown very still. Rogue, beside him, smiled at John encouragingly. John suddenly realized what he’d done in choosing to present this poem. It would be a series of bombs dropped on Bobby from a great height. _Pow! Pow!_ He panicked for a second, but then he looked at the others and at Xavier and thought, _fuck it._

“It’s a bit dense, but I’ll try to make it clear,” John told the class. He began to read the poem in a strong voice, letting the words carry themselves without embellishment, like Xavier had taught him in their private lessons. “It rained outside right into Hadrian’s soul. / The boy lay dead…” 

John fell quickly into the rhythm of the text and let himself be carried away by its power. Still, he couldn’t help hearing the words as Bobby must have been hearing them, each phrase the bright light of an explosion, exposing his secrets: 

“O bare female male-body like   
A god that dawns into humanity!” 

_Pow!_

“O lips whose opening redness erst could strike   
Lust’s seats with a soiled art’s variety!   
O fingers skilled in things not to be named!   
O tongue which, counter-tongued, the throbbed brows flamed!” 

_Pow! Pow!_

“O glory of a wrong lust pillowed on   
Raged consciousness’s spilled suspension!” 

The poem took almost ten minutes to finish, and by the end, John felt calm and acutely aware of the people in the room. Some, like Terry and Jubilee — Mike even — were caught up in the poem’s world of pain and loss. Others were oblivious. John could almost forgive them their blunt stupidity; they were only kids who had yet to fall in love, much less lose it. But could their lives have truly been so untouched by tragedy, so free of torture? He found this ignorance almost unforgivable. 

The one person he couldn’t look at for most of his reading was Bobby, and not only for the unwitting effect his reading was having on him, but because the parallels were almost tritely obvious. He finished his reading and found he couldn’t speak. The Professor broke the silence, asking if anyone had questions. 

Sam raised a hand. “Is this, like, a _gay_ poem?” 

“Excuse me, sir!” Bobby’s voice from the back of the class. John still couldn’t look at him. 

“Yes, Robert?” 

“I don’t feel well. Can I be excused?” 

“Dr. Grey is in her office if you wish to see her.” 

“No, thank you, sir. I-I just need to lie down a bit, I think.” 

John studied the page in front of him intently, seeing nothing. Rogue’s quiet voice: “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing, I’m fine. I mean, I just need to…” 

The scrape of his chair, the footsteps, the door opening, closing. Only then did John look up at the confused girl. He hadn’t planned it, but he couldn’t help feeling like he’d scored some sad little victory. 

“Yeah, Sam,” he said. “It’s pretty gay.” 

“Of course, the modern concept of ‘gay’ had no equivalent in the ancient world,” the Professor said as he wheeled up the wide path in the center of the room. “Or, in fact, until the middle of the 20th Century.” 

The discussion continued until the class ended and everyone filed out, leaving John watching the Professor as he read through notes at his desk. Without looking up, Xavier said, “Yes, John? Is there something I can do for you?” 

John bit his lower lip. “I know you’re really busy and everything, but did you get the revisions of the poems? I sent them to you Monday and I have a few more with me. The submission deadline for ‘The Harvest’ is this week.” 

He saw Xavier stiffen just a bit before he looked up to meet John’s eyes. “St. John, I have something to tell you.” 

John’s stomach clenched. “You don’t think the writing is good enough for submission.” 

“No, no. I believe the poems are ready — though of course I have no way of knowing if they would be accepted. However, after much consideration, I have decided it is not safe for you to make a public gesture of this kind now.” 

John felt a chill go through his body. He stuttered, “B-but we talked about it, how you thought my writing was good and-and —” 

“John, you are an underage runaway, named in a serious security breach last year.” 

He thought about the incident in Times Square, his poetry and his name taking over the news crawler in front of thousands. “That wasn’t my idea! Not my fault!” 

“No, but it was your name. Furthermore, I am most concerned that you will be connected with the death by fire of a gang leader named Samuel Nikkatyne last summer.” John’s mouth dropped open. Xavier nodded. “Yes, I have been doing some investigation on my own; but we need not discuss that matter now. Please understand, for your sake and the school’s, I cannot let you raise your profile in any way now.” 

John couldn’t help it, he was on the verge of tears. “But that’s not fair. I-I worked so hard…” 

“And that work is not wasted; not at all. Please think, John. You are very young. There is time for the legal issues to be resolved. There will be a time when you are not directly connected to public concern about mutants. Then, son, then —” 

John jumped to his feet. “Then I’ll be 100 years old! Then I’ll have suffocated, buried under your stupid mansion!” 

“John —” 

“No! I-I’m late. For lunch. I have to go. Thanks, whatever.” He ran from the room. He wandered without direction, clutching his notebook tightly to his chest as if it would ward off further blows. _It’s over, it’s over,_ his brain intoned monotonously. 

He didn’t even know what his problem was! Who cared if his stupid poems that no one understood got into a journal no one had ever heard of! All his efforts suddenly seemed so banal, so pointless. Hours spent worrying a couplet like a cat worries a baby bird. Obsessing over minutiae: over “constancy” versus “certitude;” “bloodless clues” or “clubless blues.” Games! Scrabble masturbation! _I mean, take Bobby_ , he thought. _What does Bobby understand or care about The Harvest? About Rimbaud and Ginsberg? About St. John Fucking Allerdyce?_

The noise of the cafeteria and the smell of tuna melts were upon him before he even realized he had gone in that direction. He looked at the smiling, laughing students. What did poetry mean to them? How would it make their lives any better? 

“John!” Terry called, in an act of irony as cruel as it was unwitting. “That poem you read was so sad. I loved it! It reminded me of this really tragic manga I read.” She turned to Clarice, her hands dancing with excitement. “You know the one — the son of a famous astronaut is in love with this famous sumo wrestler…” 

_Case in point_ , John thought. The anger was building behind his eyes as he marched towards the food station. By the time he smashed his tray down on the table, he was ready to roast anyone who said anything stupid to him. 

Terry, still bla-blabbing on: “That’s why poetry is so important. It brings your feelings to life.” 

“Poetry is lies!” he said, much louder than he meant to, and people turned around. “Poets think if they twist the words, the _universe_ will twist with them!” He was aware that he had an audience now. He liked it. “They invent a world as lame as any fantasy with unicorns and magic swords. They invent a world where ideals mean something, where devotion, philosophy, love actually carry the weight of… of natural disasters or physics or… fucking!” 

Students giggled and guffawed. Up at the teachers table, Scott and Ororo looked up to see what was happening. John didn’t care. He loved it. 

“Ideals do mean something,” Peter said and John glared at him, resenting the intrusion of the big guy’s calm certainty on his well-earned rant. 

“No! They’re just words! They’re meaningless as… as marriage contracts, as stocks and bonds. Representation without foundation!” 

“Words are power!” Tonio said from the next table. Tonio began rapping: “‘Today the world changes / The agents of change / Are strange and wide-ranging / Are angels made flesh!’ Yo! Represent!” 

John jumped to his feet, eyes blazing. “I wrote those words, asswipe! They’re all lies!” 

“The show is tomorrow, John,” Scott called out. “You can add yourself to the bill if you like. Now just sit down and have your lunch.” 

John didn’t look Summers’s way. He imagined himself pulling out his lighter and sending a fireball blazing at the teacher’s head. _Fwoosh!_ Instead he just smirked as if he’d said all there was to say. He picked up the tray of uneaten lunch and walked to the far end of the room where he sat himself down with Jones and Doug. At least they wouldn’t say anything terminally stupid — immature maybe, but nothing that would make him want to kill them. 

He needed to calm down. Things were temporarily shitty, but he if he just held it together, he’d land on his feet again. He always did. He filled himself with warm lunch, and listened with an uncomprehending ear as Doug tried to explain his new idea for cybernetic networks based in ever-spreading bacterial cultures. It was weirdly soothing. 

And then Rogue burst into the hall, scraping a chair into place beside Kitty and Rahne. “He just asked me! In the rose garden! I said yes!” Her words were meant for the two girls alone, but she was too excited to control her volume. 

“Oh wow!” Rahne squealed and they hugged each other. 

In fact, her voice was the loudest _sotto voce_ in history, and it penetrated John’s skull like a rusty coffin nail. “I’m Bobby’s boyfriend,” she told them. “I mean, he’s _my_ boyfriend. I’m his _girlfriend_ now! Officially!” 

John grew very still. The whole world seemed to contract around him. Doug and Jones were debating the challenges of feeding the computer bacteria. The girls were asking for every little detail of the scene in the rose garden. Chairs bumped on hardwood, silverware rattled on plates, and John’s heart beat louder than all of them. He didn’t know if anyone said anything to him or even saw him as he rose and walked stiffly from the room, like a ghost haunting his own life. 

As he walked alone through the empty corridors, he found himself trying to put the odd, contracted feeling into words; but all he could produce were empty prepositions, blank conjunctions devoid of context: “if…,” “…or…,” “…but…” 

Poetry had failed him absolutely. 


	25. Revenge of the Red Widow

“Oh man,” Mike groaned, his arms about to snap from the weight of two large monitor amps. “Do we really need to hump all this gear to every stop on the tour?” 

Xeno, deftly balancing two mic stands, two guitar cases and a backpack full of pedals and cords, laughed through his panting as they climbed the mansion steps. “We can’t count on the venues having decent PAs, Mike. How would you like to arrive in Buttfuck, Idaho an hour before show time and find that they’re only prepared for the church’s favorite accordion soloist?” 

Neal saw them as they stumbled through the hall. “Can I help, guys?” 

“Yes!” Mike called with relief. 

“Nope,” Xeno vetoed him. “We have to get used to this. Practicing set up is as important as practicing your songs.” Neal shrugged and wandered off. 

Mike glared at the musician. “You missed your goddamn calling as a drill sergeant in the Marines, asshole.” They entered the gym, where the performance would be the next night. 

“Well, where are the other members of our team? Oof!” Xeno grunted as he laid his burden down. “Mike, put those over by the stage area.” 

“Yes, sir,” Mike muttered and then lost his balance, the monitors slipping from his grasp and crashing to the floor. The echo circled around them a few times. 

Xeno looked up. “Shit, it’s pretty reverberant in here. Sound’s gonna be muddy as hell. Oh well, when you have sound problems, just play louder.” 

Mike worriedly looked down at the upended monitors. “Did I break them?” 

“Nah, rock and roll gear likes to get beaten up. Seriously, where’s Andi and Jubes? I mean, I’m not surprised the high priests of hip-hop are resting their precious bootys, but —” 

“Andi’s on the phone with Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jubilee…” He looked towards the door. “…should be here busting her butt with us. Seriously.” He turned the monitors right way up. 

“We could use her. I mean, wow! She’s really built up some muscle since she got to mutant school.” 

Mike sat on a speaker. “I know. She’s so serious about training. Actually, it’s kind of hot, but a bit…” 

“Intimidating? Wait till she buys a strap-on, man.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Are your folks gonna make it to the show tomorrow night?” 

“Yeah, they are. And you know what? It really means a lot to me. I finished school last year on the honor list with the whole Haddad clan chanting ‘med school…, med school…’ Now I’m a pierced punk with a ’hawk, getting ready to cross the country for mutant rights.” 

Xeno ran a finger down the line of his 10 earrings like he was playing a glissando on a xylophone. “I dunno, you look okay to me, man!” 

“No doubt. Anyway, the fact that they’re coming all the way here makes me think they might be proud of me for this, too. Your mom decide whether she’s going to make the trip?” 

“The jury’s still out. Do you think she’s agoraphobic? I think she’s agoraphobic.” He kicked the monitor Mike was sitting on. “Come on, let’s go break our backs some more. Rehearsal’s in 30 minutes.” 

Mike rubbed his sore arms resentfully. “Jubilee!” he screamed at the air in frustration, and as if it were an incantation, she appeared, wandering into the gym looking distinctly distracted. He wandered over and kissed her. If anything, the kiss made her look even more uncomfortable. “Hey, where have you been?” he asked her. 

“I had something to do, Okay?” she replied a bit testily. 

“I don’t understand. You were supposed to be helping us with —” 

Her face did a 180, flipping from doubt to excitement. “Hey, did you fucking _hear_?!” She grabbed him painfully by the arm. 

“Ow! What? No.” 

“Bobby and Rogue! They’re official. They’re a couple!” 

Mike bit his lip. “Shit. Poor John. Do you think someone should…” His question fell on empty air as Jubilee turned and walked towards the door. “Hey! You’re supposed to be helping unload the gear.” She ground to a halt, her shoes squeaking on the shiny hardwood. “We have to get used to this for the tour, Jubes.” _Something’s wrong,_ Mike thought. 

She finally turned slowly to face him, but he could see she was sort of looking at his ear, not his eye. “Um, I have to go… and meet with Ms. Monroe. Can we talk about this after?” 

“Talk about what?!” 

“Mike! I just gotta…” She turned and ran out. Mike looked at Xeno in surprise, but his friend just shrugged. 

“Female thing? Gynecological or whatever?” 

“Fuck, I hope so,” Mike answered and they headed out for the next load. 

As they re-entered the mansion with more speakers and the sound board, Mike noticed Bobby standing at the base of the stairs, frozen like a statue. He jumped when Mike called out his name. 

“What? Oh, hey, hi, Mike. How’s it going? You’re, uh, Xeno Evil, right? Welcome to the school! Is there anything you need?” The words spilled out of him in a rush, like tour guide vomit. His smile had a manic edge to it. 

“You okay, Bobby?” Mike asked, taken aback. 

“Yeah, totally. Listen, I know I should be helping you guys, but…” He glanced up the stairs and seemed to wince. “I just have to check on… uh…” He turned and began ascending the steps at a run, pausing at the landing to look up and wince again before continuing his ascent. 

Mike looked at Xeno. “I swear, everyone’s not always a psycho around here.” 

“Maybe it’s gynecological,” Xeno responded. 

“Shut up.” 

 

*** 

 

The walk to his room had never seemed so long to Bobby before. Every inch was a burden, each step set on a steeper incline. Climbing Mount Allerdyce. With his hand poised above the doorknob, Bobby took a final deep breath and entered. Darkness pushed against his eyes like a physical force. It was the middle of the day, but the blinds were drawn tight. The air was stale with the undiluted odor of teenage boy. And from somewhere in the darkness, the relentless clicking of insect feet, as if an army of beetles were traversing a corpse, climbing across the chitinous backs of their fellows, looking for a place at the trough of rot. 

“John?” he dared into the darkness, and then, as his eyes adjusted, he realized there was a single point of light in the room: John’s computer, illuminating his roommate’s face with a ghostly radiance. The insects were, of course, John’s fingers flying across his keyboard with alarming speed and intensity. “What are you doing in the dark?” 

“I fell asleep. Then I had this idea and I had to start…” his voice trailed off as he backspaced over a misstep and began typing again with the same insectoid staccato. He seemed to have forgotten Bobby was even there. Bobby felt a moment of annoyance. He had been coming here prepared for recrimination, or a fight… or sex. He wasn’t ready to be ignored. He snapped on the overhead lights. 

“John, I wanted to tell you before you heard from someone else —” 

“You and Rogue are a couple,” John said flatly and stopped typing. He furrowed his brow at the words on the screen. 

Bobby was thrown. He stared at John for clues. Was he hurt? Angry? “Um, yeah, we are. But listen, I don’t want you to think this, uh, changes… I mean, we’re still friends and…” John smirked at the screen and Bobby lost his train of thought. “What are you writing anyway?” 

“A novel. Listen, Drake, I got to get this out while it’s fresh in my head. Would you mind…?” 

Bobby was suddenly really glad for the excuse to leave. In fact, it was all he could do not to run out of this stifling cave into the light and air. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ll just, uh… go.” 

He opened the door, but just before he left, John said, “Oh, and Bobby? Before I forget…” 

Bobby turned back to find John looking at him with a calm, even gaze. “I talked to Peter. I’m going to be moving in with him tomorrow.” 

Bobby panicked. “What? But… you don’t have to move! Me and Rogue don’t… I mean, there’s no reason that —” 

John shook his head. “Nah, I think it’s a good idea. Anyway, got to finish this. Turn out the lights before you leave, okay?” John leaned towards his screen, his lips moving as he reviewed a line. He gave a low, dirty chuckle and resumed typing. 

Bobby stood in the hall, his back to the door. From behind it, the insects marched across the keyboard relentlessly. 

 

*** 

 

“Charles, do you have a second?” 

“Certainly, Scott. I’m just going over the numbers for Andi and Michael’s tour. In the last week alone, the lad has managed to squeeze almost $10,000 out of me for additional expenses.” 

Scott laughed. “I admire that kid’s tenacity. We should have him fundraising for the school.” 

“Don’t imagine the thought hasn’t crossed my mind.” He put his pen down and looked up at his protégé. “What can I do for you?” 

“John Allerdyce has missed both his afternoon classes,” Scott replied. “I thought I’d speak to you before I call him to my office.” 

Charles felt a pang of regret for his part in the boy’s truancy. John had taken the news badly that he couldn’t submit his poems, and he was not the type to let a hurt just roll off him. “Do you know what he’s been doing instead?” 

“According to Bobby, he’s in his room writing a novel.” 

“A novel?!” Charles exclaimed in surprise. He had been afraid the earlier disappointment would have driven the boy away from all things literary. And now a _novel_ of all things. It seemed Michael wasn’t the only tenacious one. “Scott, I know the importance of full attendance, but I’d like to let the boy have his way this one time.” 

“I don’t like to make exceptions, Charles. It sets a bad precedent.” 

“I don’t want to lose John. The gains he has made this year are, I fear, fragile constructs at best. And perhaps he’s creating something extraordinary!” He couldn’t help the note of expectant glee that colored his words. 

“Fine. He’s your special case and I’ll defer to your judgment. I just hope we don’t live to regret it.” 

 

*** 

 

“Jubilee, where the fuck…?” Mike yelled above the sound of Xeno’s guitar feedback. “We got you the afternoon off to help, and you’re just showing up now?” 

“Mike, don’t give me grief,” she shouted back. “Shit’s going down.” Her hair had fallen over her eyes and Mike felt like she was hiding from him. 

Xeno yelled from the stage. “Turn down the 5k on the right front monitor, Haddad! You’re killing me!” 

Mike’s last nerve was not doing well. “Jesus Christ, I’ve never even _seen_ a sound board before today! Cut me some slack!” He bent over the board and made the adjustment before turning back to Jubilee. “What kind of ‘shit’? We’re going out on tour starting this weekend! With the freakin’ Dazzler! I don’t understand your attitude. Help me understand.” 

She put her hands over her ears. “Can we get out of here for a minute? I can’t think! Fuck!” 

Mike was suddenly worried. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. He flashed five fingers at Xeno who rolled his eyes, and followed Jubilee out into the quiet of the hall. An antique chair with carved legs and velvet cushions stood by the wall and she curled herself into it, drawing her feet up and dropping her head to her knees. She looked so lost that Mike forgot his frustration and kneeled in front of her, reaching up to tenderly push the hair away from her face. “What is it? You can tell me.” 

“Did you hear about John?” she said quickly. “He’s locked in his dorm writing a _novel!_ He won’t let anyone near him!” 

“He’s hurting. That wasn’t good news he got today.” Mike touched her cheek softly. “But that isn’t what you wanted to talk about, Jubes.” 

She gave a little moan “I swear, I didn’t intend this, Mike,” she said in embarrassment, but he could already see the steely resolution growing in her black eyes. She took an audible breath and said, “I’m not going on tour with you.” 

He froze, at a loss for words. “Okay,” he said mechanically, already preparing to debate her out of whatever reasons she gave. She couldn’t really mean it, he thought. But there was all that _resolve_ … “Why not? Is there something else —?” 

“I have to train.” She looked into his eyes as if that was all she needed to say. 

He felt himself panicking. This couldn’t be true. He needed her with him. “But you’ll be back by the middle of August. You can train then. Why… why is it so important that you —” 

“Mr. Summers and Ororo asked me to stay behind after powers class the other day. They said they were really impressed with me. Not just with how I’m controlling my fireworks, but with, um, they said my leadership and my poise.” She looked at Mike, and he knew she wanted him to share her excitement. He understood how much those words must have meant to her, but he couldn’t push past the sick dread that was growing in him. “They told me they want me to be part of the next group of X-Men.” 

_No!_ he thought. And the intensity of his anger shocked him. He didn’t want that for her — no, not at all. He didn’t dare tell her this though, so he said, “But what does that have to do with the tour?” 

“They said if I want to be an X-Man, I have to get _really_ serious. I can’t take a summer off my training. Do you realize how much of an honor this is? I’m not even a level 3 mutant! My powers are nothing compared to Bobby’s or Peter’s.” 

From beyond the gym door, Xeno’s music was starting to drive him crazy. “But who says you _want_ to be X-Man?” His voice was rising, despite his desire to keep cool. “Why do they think they know what you want?!” 

“But I do want it, Mike! I have to do this. I watch the news with you every morning, I talk to refugee kids, I see what’s going on, and I can’t stand back. I want to fight!” She uncurled from the chair and rose to her feet, restless energy pushing her to pace up and down the hall. 

“But, Jubes,” he said, following at her heels as she paced. “We _are_ fighting! This whole tour is about bringing mutants together so they can stand up and demand their rights! That’s how we’re fighting back!” 

She stopped and turned to him. “No! That’s how _you’re_ fighting. I’m not you! I want to stand on the front line when someone wants to hurt us. I want to be like Storm!” 

He shook his head, like he could make her words go away. “No, you’re not a violent person, Jubilee. You’re smart and caring —” 

“Michael, my life has been _full_ of violence! My parents were murdered, you were attacked… Look at my friends! John, Clarice… they’ve all been hurt by assholes. And when I see that, I just want to kick back! I want to stop those evil bastards who would hurt such beautiful… Such…” She threw her arms around him. “Don’t look at me like that, Mike. I love you! I believe in what you’re doing!” 

He couldn’t curb the bitterness in his voice. “But you want to train.” 

“I _have_ to train.” He turned away from her. He didn’t know where to put his feelings, his sense of betrayal. He was ashamed for her to see that. He felt her hand on his lower back. “Baby, when the Friends of Humanity were going to kill you, I saved you. Right?” 

“Yeah,” he admitted and now he felt ashamed of his weakness — that his girlfriend had to come to his rescue. 

“That was one of the worst days of my life, Mike. But you know what? It was also one of the best.” 

He scrunched up his face. “How can you say that?” 

“Because I saved you,” she answered. “Because I was brave and strong and I made a difference. I want to feel that way again.” 

Mike let out a long shuddering breath. “But I want you with me,” he said hopelessly. He pulled her back into his arms and held her tight, like she was drowning and he was saving her from the waves. “I keep imagining us traveling together, meeting all those mutant kids, sleeping together in strange houses, or on the bus… I want to share this summer with you.” 

Jubilee started to cry. “I know, I wanted it, too.” 

Or was it him drowning? Was he the one clinging to her, desperate for her strength? He stroked her hair. “I don’t want you in danger like that. They have no right to push you —” 

“They didn’t. It’s my decision and I’m the one making it. But it means I have to make sacrifices.” 

He pulled back to stare into her eyes. “Like me. Our relationship is a sacrifice.” He knew he was being an asshole, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t fair. 

She wiped her eyes and leaned in to kiss his cheek. Her voice was calm now. Resolute. “Michael, I love you! But I can’t be with you this summer.” 

But he couldn’t be mature about it; he just couldn’t it. He turned from her and began walking back to the gym. “Fine, good luck. I have to go fucking tweak the 5k or some fucking shit. You… you go kick a bag or whatever turns you on.” _Shut up!_ he told himself, but out loud he said, “I don’t give a shit.” 

 

*** 

 

As day wound into evening, excitement about the next day’s concert rose higher. The mansion would occasionally shake with a sound check that got out of hand, and Mike and Xeno would appear from time to time, looking wired or doomed, to grab some food and drink. Sam piped in music by the Dazzler to serenade the cafeteria during dinner, and Derek flew into a jealous rage, lambasting everyone for being into the “sell out” instead of the true independent spirits like him and Tonio. 

Rogue tried to bring a tray up to John in his writer’s hermitage, but Jubilee cannily volunteered to be the courier in her stead. When she returned, she reported to Doug how John had summarily dismissed her after she lay the tray down outside the door. 

“I wonder what he’s writing,” Doug said, pushing his fish around his plate. “I bet it’s awesome.” 

Bobby watched the excitement with a distracted smile on his face, answering “You bet!” and “Sure!” to anything Rogue said, though frankly, his mind was a blind weatherman, trying to predict what conditions would be like in his room when he returned. He finally dared enter around 11. Things were much the same as they had been earlier, except that the funk had deepened, and John looked much the worse for wear. His eyes were red and his brow sweaty, but still he typed on. Bobby’s concern for himself switched over to worry about John. 

He crossed the room and opened the window, letting the fresh night air flow into the room. He got a bottle of orange juice out of the fridge and brought it to John who mumbled “thanks” and took it, drinking deeply without taking his eyes off the screen. He burped and handed the bottle back to Bobby. 

“John, why don’t you go to bed? You’ve been writing all day.” 

“What? No, it’s going really well. I have the whole thing in my head now. I can finish it.” 

Bobby felt his heart sink. John was just doing all this because of him and Rogue. But why was he making such a big deal of it? He wasn’t really going to move out, was he? That was just grandstanding. Bobby wanted to uncoil this mess. He wanted things back the way they were. “Come to _my_ bed, then,” he said. “I’ll help you relax. I’ll make you feel good.” 

John looked away from the screen for the first time, giving Bobby a startled look of annoyance. “What? No! Leave me alone.” 

The rebuke felt like a slap. Bobby shoved the orange juice in the fridge and slammed the door. He picked up John’s tray of dirty dishes from the floor and dropped it on his dresser with a bang. “Are you doing this to piss me off, Allerdyce?” 

“I’m just trying to write, Bobby. Go to sleep.” 

“What are you writing, anyway? Is it about me?” 

John didn’t answer. The keys clattered under his fingers, and Bobby stared at his back. From time to time, John laughed with hoarse glee. 

 

*** 

 

The next day was a circus, an explosion of incident and wonder. The teachers were endeavoring to remind the students that there were still two weeks of school left, during which important assignments and quizzes were still to be completed. (Xavier did not believe in the artificial pressure of final exams, or that cramming was an effective learning tool.) But their words had little effect on the population of the mansion. 

First of all, a pretty young woman in her early twenties entered with Andi during breakfast, and it took only a few seconds before everyone knew that this was the Dazzler. 

She was soon mobbed, but she handled the incident with humility and aplomb. “Great to meet you, Sam. My name’s Alison, actually — not Dazzler. No, Dani, it’s totally an honor to meet _you_ guys. I can’t believe there’s actually a mutant high school. If I could have gone here, I wouldn’t have waited so long to come out as a mutant.” 

Mike, who had met Alison Blaire a few weeks earlier in New York, stood back and watched the excited buzzing. He hoped it was a harbinger of things to come on the tour. Alison’s positive attitude was exactly what they needed. She had told him she was excited to interact with kids across the country, not just hit the stage and then hide in the dressing room. The funniest thing was watching Derek and Tonio sulking in the corner until Andi called them forward to meet the center of attention, at which point they instantly transformed into gushing fanboys. 

Despite the delight in the room, Mike’s mood was soured by Jubilee’s announcement. Suddenly everything felt different, the tour a long slog without reward, tonight’s concert a joyless responsibility. He wished he could just bolt and let someone else take over. But the tour had been his idea and he wasn’t one to run from responsibility, no matter how painful. He knew he should have spent last night in one of the spare dorms with his girlfriend, but the fight stood between them like a stone barricade. And he knew he was the one who had built it. Soon he’d be gone, and when the tour was over, he’d move back in Boston. She would remain here, with her people, training to become something he couldn’t relate to. He didn’t understand why life had to be like this… soured just when it was at its sweetest. 

He heard Rogue telling Allison, “I can’t wait for you to meet my boyfriend. He’s a big fan of yours.” She was looking around the cafeteria for Bobby who had still not come down. Mike wondered if there had been a bad fight in the dorm last night. Certainly no one had needed to call the fire department or break down an iced-over door with an axe. Just then, Bobby entered, his eyes red, his hair uncharacteristically disheveled, yawning extravagantly. He stood beside Mike, taking in the spectacle of the group around the singer, but not showing much reaction. 

“Rough night?” Mike ventured, sympathetically. 

Bobby raised his fingers up into two witch-like, typing claws. “Clatta-clatta-clatta-clatta!” he said and then repeated the motion, cackling like a fiend. 

“The guy’s driven! Do you think he’s okay?” 

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Bobby snapped and instantly put on a smile and returned Rogue’s wave, moving towards the huddle as if he was genuinely enthusiastic. 

The circus’s next act was the arrival of families, friends and associates of the school, a process which began after breakfast and continued all day. It didn’t take Scott long to realize that whatever else he hoped to accomplish that day would be swallowed up by his duties as host. He still didn’t like the social role that was part of his job description as assistant headmaster, but he knew he had improved in it since his awkward beginnings back in September. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Haddad, nice to have you back here,” he said with a smile and firm handshake. 

Mr. Haddad smiled brightly, looking around. “Is Michael around?” 

“Sorry to say it, but I doubt you’ll get more than three seconds of his time between now and the show. I’m impressed by the boy’s energy.” Mr. Haddad laughed, but his wife looked distinctly put out. “However, Professor Xavier is looking forward to lunching with you,” Scott added in as conciliatory a tone as he could. 

When lunchtime came, Xavier was occupied and Scott was annoyed to find himself stuck at a table making small talk with the assembled guests; but then an ominous shadow fell across the table. All eyes turned upwards and the convivial chatter evaporated. The man was a behemoth in silver goggles, close to eight feet tall and he must have weighed in at more than 400 pounds. The fancy suit he was wearing didn’t hide the fact that the weight was all muscle. “Hello, Scott,” the man said in a deep voice with a New Jersey accent. 

“Hey, Guido. Nice threads.” 

“It’s Armani. Custom, of course.” 

“You’ll excuse me, folks? Mr. Carosella and I have some business to discuss.” 

Guido gave the group a toothy grin, which seemed to frighten them even more. 

Scott led him to the gym where the preparations were still under way. Peter was on his hands and knees, working on an illustrated banner that would fly above the stage throughout the tour. Sam and Neal were setting lights. Scott called to Mike and Xeno who joined them, their jaws dropping when Guido stepped in from the hall. 

“You can call me ‘Strong Guy,’” he told them and they just nodded. 

Scott was enjoying the effect the giant mutant was having. It wasn’t often he had this much fun. “I told you I’d get you security for the tour, didn’t I?” 

Xeno recovered faster than Mike and stuck out (up!) a hand for the big mutant to shake. “Hope you like good music, Strong Guy.” 

“I sure do. I’m especially partial to Sinatra, k.d. lang and Tchaikovsky.” 

 

The chaos tipped into madness just before lunch when everyone in the mansion received an email with the subject: “The Revenge of the Red Widow.” It contained, of course, John’s novel. Novella would have been more accurate, as it barely topped 50,000 words. It was full of explosive hilarity, badly in need of proofreading and utterly, gleefully pornographic. It didn’t take long before everyone was reading it, taking it on their laptops and handhelds from class to class, and disrupting the flow of the day reciting it to each other. 

“‘— _But can your Mississippi belle offer you riches to compare to these?_ — Ivy tore asunder her décolletage and her bosom heaved loose, like twin Arabians breaking from the start line in a blur of alabaster foam.’” Kitty’s voiced crested and swooped like a B-grade Scarlet O’Hara. 

In fact, the whole student body seemed to have been transformed into a summer stock production of “Showboat.” Before math class, Sam stood on a bench in the hall, surrounded by a small audience, declaiming, “‘The buttons of his pants were of the finest copper, polished daily by a buxom serving girl with energetic strokes of her chamois cloth!’ Yeah, I’ll bet. _Ahem_. ‘Now, under the turgid forces of irrepressible lust, they popped off one by one, showering Lucy-Belle’s boudoir floor like so many scattered sovereigns. She looked up from her bed, where she lay spread open and fertile as the Mississippi Delta, and moaned — _Do not make a beggar of me, dear Beauregard. My love is yours, gratis._ ’” 

The students howled appreciatively, but Bobby stood away from the pack, embarrassed and angry. How could John have done this to him? Of course, he knew that no one really understood what they were reading — a thinly veiled reference to John, Rogue and himself — but John could have hurt Rogue’s feelings with all this fake Southern bullshit! Didn’t he think of that? Bobby sat down by the wall and opened the copy on his laptop. He reminded himself that Rogue had already declared the work silly but hilarious. She’d even been flattered by whatever uncalled for attention the story brought her. She thought John was altogether the most interesting guy at the mansion, though she assured Bobby that only he had her heart. 

And if ‘interesting’ were the only label he had for John, and if his own supposed feckless promiscuity weren’t being spread across the pages of the book, he might have been more forgiving. He scrolled through the pages with disgust and all the words for “penis” jumped out at him: “love scepter,” “the blacksmith’s hammer.” It made him want to scream. Suddenly, he stopped scrolling and his eyes fell across a passage he hadn’t seen yet: 

— _Save your protestations of love, Beauregard_ — Ivy Lerre de Poison declared. — _I told you when we met. Love means nothing to me._   
He looked her up and down incredulously, still moved by the round form in the red satin sheath. — _If love means nothing, then the terrible revenge you have exacted from my Lucy-Belle is meaningless. What but love could have driven you so?_   
— _In my actions you see the sad truth._ — the widow confessed. — _Love is a rotten fruit that poisons all._ — She held a pale hand to her breast as if the very heart within might leap out, alien and terrible. — _I never demanded your love, sir, only your loyalty. But that you could not give._

Bobby felt like he’d been sucker-punched. He slowly closed his laptop. The Red Widow’s speech was the same thing John had said to him the week he came to the mansion: “I don’t care about love; it’s all just words. I want you to promise that you won’t betray me.” 

_I didn’t betray you! I saved you!_ Bobby protested. _I got you into the mansion, I introduced you to the Professor. I never promised I’d be your… your whatever. It’s not wrong that I want to be with Rogue! It’s normal, it’s the simplest thing in the world. Why do you have to make up all this drama over… over…_

“Hey, Bobby,” Doug said, standing above him. “Wake up, time for class.” 

He tried to smile in response, but he was too confused. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten there. That feeling was becoming all too familiar. 

 

At first, Charles had missed the single, crucial fact that John had mailed his… work… to the whole of the school. Thinking he was the only one reading it, Charles had found the strange novella simply a baffling miscalculation on the boy’s part, a joke he thought his mentor would appreciate. But no, it was a statement. John had hijacked the whole school on this important day with a puerile stunt. Charles could only see it as a deliberate slap in his face. His legendary calm was all too easily undermined when it came to this boy. 

The young author sat across from him in rumpled jeans and a stained t-shirt, hair disheveled, eyes red from lack of sleep, a mask of smug self-satisfaction painted across his features. _Does he think he can get away with anything?_ Charles wondered. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “For the last two days, I have protected your time so you could write. I have explained to your frustrated instructors that you were on the verge of some breakthrough. I put my integrity on the line based on my faith in you.” He paused. Looking down, he noticed how he was tapping his pen nervously. He grabbed the instrument in a tight fist. 

“Is this where I say ‘thank you,’ John asked. “Or does that come later?” 

“This is where you explain to me what you mean by this nonsense, St. John!” 

John twisted like a pretzel in his chair, but his eyes and their challenge never wavered. “Hey, you should be proud, Professor. I wrote my first novel!” 

“I know you better than that. I know that you understand the triviality of what you have written. After we have worked together so hard this year, should I consider this your final exam effort?” 

“You don’t believe in final exams,” he replied. Charles could feel the boy’s anger growing like a wave. He could feel the palpable urge to reach for the lighter in his pocket. To use how? Against whom? 

“St. John, you are a writer! Why are you making a laughing-stock of yourself?” 

“If everyone’s laughing it’s because I wrote it that way. If I wanted them to cry, they’d be crying. It’s just a game, Professor. It’s all meaningless.” 

Xavier felt his rational mind fail him. He sputtered, “It’s not! It’s a gift, and you can be a great artist if you so choose! But not if you —” 

The boy sprang to his feet and marched forward, leaning on the desk with rigid arms, his face close enough that Charles could smell the unbrushed teeth. “Maybe it’s not me that wants to be great. Maybe it’s you that wants to live through me!” 

“I am your teacher, John,” Charles said, his temper hanging by a thread. “It is my job to help you succeed.” 

“You’re a failed writer, _Charles_! And you’ve been using me to get your kicks, relive the dream of being young and boner-hard _talented_. Well, I’m not going to play your game. It means _nothing_ to me!” 

Charles’ mind flew into a storm of protest. What was the boy _saying?_ His chest felt tight. He needed room to think. He wanted the boy out of his face. “You are in this school because of your writing,” he said. “Do not jeopardize —” 

John cut him off. “That may be why you took me in the first place, but I’ve proven myself! I have high marks, I work hard in powers class. I could be an X-Man!” The boy’s spit flew as he shouted, hitting his teacher’s face. “I don’t need to be your pet project to deserve my place in this mutant circus!” 

Charles reached out with his mind before he could stop himself. John gave a squeak of surprise as he found himself jerked upright, arms pinned to his side, legs locked. Charles could feel John’s shock. He let go immediately, cursing himself for his loss of control. “John, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” 

He watched as fear and humiliation turned to raw fury. Charles prepared himself to control John again if he should move to attack him, but John jumped back with a growl. “You don’t get to live through me anymore, old man! I’m St. John Allerdyce and I’m no one’s fucking PUPPET!” 

“John, please,” Charles began. “We both lost ourselves, let’s calm down and —” 

John ran for the door, turning as he opened it. “You want to calm down? Go make yourself some Earl Grey, old man — _and shove it up your ass!_ ” He ran out the door, slamming it behind him. 

Charles put his hands to his head, mortified, feeling the sweat on his brow. _How? How did I allow this to happen?_ The boy’s charge was preposterous; everything they had done had been for St. John’s benefit! But what if the boy was right? Maybe he had glommed onto John’s talent to satisfy his own ego. Was he such a narcissist? Did he use up his prize students one by one? Manipulate them into the shapes he wanted them? Scott? Ororo? Look what he was doing with Jean! What if Erik was right about her? He found himself breathing hard, clutching the pen like he wanted to snap it in two. 

Two short knocks and the door opened. Scott, of course. “Charles, what the hell was that?!” 

“Scott, not now —” 

“No! I am sick of that boy thinking he runs the show around here. A student losing his temper is one thing, but telling you to shove it? I’m sorry, that crosses so many lines —” 

Charles’s voice was louder than he meant it to be. “You don’t understand! St. John and I, we have a difficult relationship. Maybe… maybe I’ve done it all wrong. I don’t know anymore. I wanted to nurture his gift, to give him confidence.” 

“There is a difference between confidence and lack of respect. For himself, for his fellow students, for Bobby, for his teachers…” Scott pounded on the wall with a fist, and Charles recoiled from the noise, dropping his head into hands. 

“Sit down, I beg you. I don’t think I can take another pitched battle. Not now, not with you.” 

Scott sat. “All right, I’m sorry. You know John best. Tell me what you think his problem is and what you think we should do.” 

Charles took a moment to breathe. He finally put the pen down, aligning it beside the plastic desk cover. “We need to listen to him. He might be right. I might have…” He stopped. A mental ripple. A wave coming, white-capped and terrible… He spun his chair around, looking out the window in horror. “St. John! NO!” 

John Allerdyce stood on the gravel driveway. At his feet was a pile of papers. Charles could feel through the boy’s mind the particular identity of every sheet, every scrap. Years of work, torn from him in bloody operations, shifting nervously in the late afternoon breeze. In John’s hand, the lighter. Scott was on his feet, running from the room to intercept him. And Charles… couldn’t he stop him? Couldn’t he? 

“I’m nobody’s puppet!” John screamed. “I’m not a fucking WHORE!” _click. skritch. fwoosh._ The flame leaped free and then crashed at his feet, devouring the poetry in its hungry jaws. Charles could feel the exhilaration through John’s mind. He could feel the elemental beauty of the fire as the boy felt it, the joy of the pure, consuming force. The inferno rose into a tower to engulf the pyrokinetic. The last thing the teacher felt before he pulled himself from the student’s mind was the angelic kiss of the flame on his skin. Charles opened his eyes and watched through the window as John stepped calmly, unscathed from the shrinking column of flame and walked slowly away, leaving his creations to twist and blacken, their final proclamations not in carefully wrought words, but in smoke. 

 

Three minutes earlier, Bobby had been wandering the halls again, again trying to get up the nerve to go and talk to John, when he looked up and saw him barreling down the stairs, clutching an unruly nest of papers to his chest, sheets escaping and flying into the air as he ran. There was something wrong in his eyes. “John…?” But there was no stopping John’s momentum which carried him out the front door. To his left, the sound of more running feet. Bobby looked down the hall and there was Scott, racing towards him. Two and two together, Bobby suddenly realized, without knowing exactly why, that he had to get to John — preferably before Scott. 

“I’m not a fucking _whore!”_

Bobby froze as the flames rose into the sky, engulfing John. _Move! Move!_ But then John was free of the inferno, walking away unharmed. _Oh my god it’s his poems_ and Bobby ran down the steps, spraying ice at the blaze just as Scott ran down the steps to join him. 

“I got it,” Bobby yelled to him. “There, it’s out.” They both looked down at the sodden, black mess. In the twisted debris, Bobby recognized the remains of John’s old leather folder, the one he had been carrying the day they met. He felt sick. 

“John! John Allerdyce, you stop right there!” Scott yelled beside him and Bobby looked up to see John rounding the corner of the school and disappearing. Months of training had honed Bobby’s instincts. Sometimes in combat class, he would make a move without consciously planning it, and that’s what he did now. He lowered himself and jumped to the right, blocking Scott just as his teacher began his sprint to catch John. Scott hit him hard and they both went down on the gravel walk. Bobby felt the stones scrape his arm. 

They were both on their feet in a second. Bobby grabbed Scott by the arms. “Let him go, please!” 

“Out of my way, Bobby!” 

“Please! He’s gone through enough… Just…” Scott jerked his hands loose and Bobby grabbed them again. He realized how far he was pushing it, but there was no choice. He looked desperately into Scott’s face, struggling to convey his unformed feelings. “Just let him go and he’ll calm down. Then… then I’ll talk to him. Please?” 

Scott pulled his arms away again and crossed them on his chest. He turned a scowling face to the mansion, and Bobby looked up to see Professor Xavier at the window, his face a mask of tension. Bobby realized that the two of them were speaking telepathically. He saw that the scene had drawn a crowd. From the front door, from the windows, students, teachers and guests were watching. Bobby looked back at the sodden remains of John’s poetry. _John wasn’t out of control_ , he realized. _He lit the fire where it couldn’t damage anything else. Does Scott see that?_

“Fine,” Scott spat, his conversation with the Professor clearly over. “I wash my hands. Obviously I’m the only one who doesn’t _understand_ John Allerdyce.” He brushed gravel off his black shirt. “I have to go see to our guests. Excuse me.” He turned and walked back up the steps. 

Bobby looked towards the Professor, hoping the old man would speak in his mind, reassure him. But Xavier’s face disappeared from the window. Bobby returned to the mansion, finding loose scraps of poetry in the bushes and on the stairs. He folded them and stuffed them deep into his pants pocket. He would keep them. Secretly. 

He waited half an hour before he went to their room. The first thing he saw when he opened the door was the void where John’s life had been. The bed, the dresser, the walls — all had been emptied. Bobby felt again the pang he had felt when Lance left. Like someone had died. 

“Hi,” came an unexpected voice from within the room, and it was only then that Bobby stepped inside and looked at his own half of the room. John was on his (Bobby’s) bed, wrapped in a sheet. Before Bobby could speak a surprised greeting, the sheet fell, revealing his friend’s aroused nakedness. 

John had once asked him, “If you had to write a poem about something, what would it be?” Bobby had answered, “Your dick,” before going down on that very subject. He thought now that it hadn’t just been a glib remark. It was a beautiful penis. Hard, it arced a bit to the left. The head was most of the way out of the hood of foreskin, red and ripe as a plum. Bobby was somehow moved by this vision in a way no words could have captured. 

“I thought… you had gone,” he managed, suddenly bashful. 

“To Pete’s room or like _gone_ gone?” 

“I don’t know. John, what happened outside…” 

John’s eyes seemed to gleam with a strange intensity that was both scary and unbearably hot. “Shh, don’t talk about that, Bobby. Get undressed. Come here.” 

“I don’t know. We have to go down to dinner soon and —” 

“No, come on, you need it. It’s been a bad day.” 

And yes it had been, and there was John, like a secret comfort Bobby kept hidden in a drawer, something that felt good in this hard life. And was it so wrong? Didn’t he deserve that much? So he took off his clothes, and he was hard, too, and there was so much pleasure to be had and he wanted it so bad. And John was whispering in his ear and jacking him with aching slowness. 

“Here,” Bobby breathed. “Let me —” 

“No, shh, Bobby, just let me do the work.” 

Bobby let himself be pushed down on the bed, his legs moved apart. And John’s tongue was on his hole, and it felt so perfect and so dirty, and made him open up all the parts of himself that no one would ever see. Not Scott or even Rogue… just John. 

“I’m gonna put a finger in you, don’t worry, just breathe.” Bobby couldn’t find the words to object, and he didn’t search for them. John’s hand was strong around him, squeezing and relaxing on his dick as the finger slid inside. _ahhhhhhhhhh strange._ He felt suspended somewhere above the world as the finger moved in him, touched new places. He found himself moving onto all fours to let it go deeper. And there was something cold there now, slippery. And a second finger. It was like a game. _How much can you take?_

“The world,” Bobby answered himself and John said, “No one’s here but me, Bobby.” And what else did he need, rocking and moaning, the fingers taking him somewhere new? 

John was so close to him, he might have been some dark shadow of Bobby’s soul. “I’m going to fuck you now,” the John shadow said and Bobby pulled away a little. But the John shadow cooed and caressed in a language of hands and moans, so the Bobby just let it happen. He heard the latex swish of the condom, felt the round pressure of the head, and then the John was inside for real and for good. Penetrated. Better than telepathy, but worse, too. Something revealed that could never again be concealed, and this was being fucked. And he was glad. 

“Is it good, Bobby? Tell me it’s good.” 

“Shh, shh, Don’t say anything… Fuck me,” Bobby said, and the voice was one he had never heard, but recognized all the same. “Don’t say my name. Just fuck me.” 

And there was no doubting; this was as physical as it got. This was no romance novel. It was sweat and smell and slap and groan. Bobby’s dick was jerking without being touched, John’s hands digging into his hips. And he was cumming just like that, and the voice saying, “No, no, oh no,” was his own as John gave a choking gasp and pushed in hard, holding still, his whole body spasming against Bobby, inside Bobby. 

They fell sideways on the bed, breathing hard, finding the way back to Earth, and John was pulling out and Bobby thought, _No, no stay with me_. But John wasn’t with him. Bobby felt the sudden absence like a blow. He turned to find John pulled back to the furthest corner of the bed, staring at him with unfathomable fury. “Johnny…” Bobby began in confusion. 

John’s words were carved in ice, hard, jagged, conscious. “That’s it, Drake. Last time. Like it? Too bad, there’s no more.” 

Bobby couldn’t move. His brain tried to change John’s words into a possible joke. The alchemy was beyond him. 

“Go!” John’s voice rose to a higher octave, dressing itself in faux-Mississippi drag. “Be with your Marie, sugah!” And John kicked at him, legs flailing until Bobby had to retreat to the floor, looking up in shock. “I’m not your secret anymore, Drake! I’m not your _secret whore!_ ” John stood up on the bed and tore the filled condom off his softening penis, hurling it to the floor. He jumped right over Bobby and headed for his clothes, draped over the desk chair. 

Bobby’s mouthed worked as John pulled on his pants, trying to form words. “John, no! There has to be a way. It can be like before —” 

“No! No it can’t! I declare it over!” He pushed his feet into his shoes, pulled his t-shirt on over his sweating torso. “Finished. I take nothing with me but your secrets. And you have mine. You have them inside you.” He opened the door, and his final words were a dark whisper, a hiss, a curse. “You’re fucked, Drake.” He slammed the door. 

He was gone. 

Bobby was shaking. He didn’t dare feel. One feeling and he would be lost in a pit from which there was no escape. He focused on a spot on the floor, on a knot in the hardwood that the wood grain had to circle around. An impediment. A scar. He became aware of the sounds of the mansion: the slam of a door, a peal of laughter, a blast of music. He looked up and saw the time on his bedside clock. 5:30. A special dinner had been arranged, with white linen on tables out on the back lawn. The tour launch party. Guests, speeches. He wanted to stay here on the floor forever, become a knot in the woodwork and let the world flow around him. But that wasn’t the way it played. Bobby Drake had a place at that dinner with a smile on his face. Yes, he knew his part in the show. 

He rose stiffly and picked up a towel, mechanically searching his torso for cum. _I’m still here,_ he thought rather obviously as he felt his body. His ass hurt a bit, but that wasn’t surprising. He dropped the towel into his hamper, pulled on shorts and headed to the bathroom with his toilet kit. Under the water, he let the day wash off him. Maybe more than the day… Maybe all the hidden fingerprints of the winter and spring… Maybe all the evidence. 

Back in his room, he put in just the right amount of gel in his hair, dressed with care, and took a step back to assess himself in the mirror. He looked like Bobby Drake again. No one would ever know. He was quite certain that John would not be around that evening; he’d be hiding in some remote corner of the grounds. Or gone completely? Doubtful. By the time he had to face him again, Bobby felt certain he would be ready — armored, sure of his course. He found his smile in a drawer, with Peter Pan’s shadow. He stuck it in place with soap and went downstairs. 

 

*** 

 

“Good Evening, Westchester!” she called into the microphone and 30 students, teachers and guests erupted in cheers that had been building in them for two days. “My name is Kitty Pryde and I welcome you to the kick off concert of the first ever Mutant Youth Unity Tour!” 

Mike bumped her level a bit. Xeno was right: it seemed loud enough in sound check, but with an audience in the room, with the excitement in the air, you needed just that little bit extra. 

“The amazing musicians you are going to see tonight have dedicated this show to the mutants of America. It seems appropriate as we wind up the first year at the School for Gifted Youngsters, that we send them off to continue the work Professor Xavier and the other teachers have done here. On behalf of young mutants everywhere, let’s give them a Westchester cheer!” The audience responded on cue, Kitty egging them on with a waving hand. She screamed over their noise, “And now, put your hands together for Derek and Tonio!” 

The beat dropped hard, infinitely tighter and more compelling than their impromptu show at the “Betrayers” protests, thanks to their musical director and DJ, Xeno Evil, who stood backlit on a riser with laptop and guitar. The boys hit the stage like the stars they knew they were, hands pumping. 

  Born red as fire   
  In desire’s kitchen   
  Bitchin’ ’bout a world where justice is a liar   
  Born in a hood   
  Where the good are laughed at   
  Where half a chance is a luxury   
  Manifest mutant, a student I became   
  Of the game of hatred   
  Of the world of blame   
  Is it a shame? I’m not crying   
  I’m trying to explain   
  To get into your brain that we’re all the same!   
  DAYS OF BECOMING!   
  Will you fight or fail?   
  DAYS OF BECOMING!   
  Break out of your jail   
  DAYS OF BECOMING!   
  Can you hear the drumming?   
  We’ve known war before.   
  Will we open that door?   
  Or can we find the time to   
  Release   
   _Peace?_

Not that anyone would have guessed it, but Scott was something of a hip-hop fan, though he betrayed little with the minimal rocking of his head during the set. Jean stood behind him, her arms around his middle, her head nuzzling into his neck. He was worried about her. She had been nervous and out of sorts since Liberty Island, clinging to him in a way that was pleasurable, but not her norm. Charles had said not to worry, but Scott could always tell when the two of them had their telepaths’ secrets. He didn’t like it. 

_Can we find the time release peace?_ An excellent question posed by the rhymes. He knew the words were John’s and they were good. If the kid had this much talent, why did he have to squander it with violence and disrespect? Scott despised waste. 

Xeno’s set was a different beast altogether. He was joined by a girl drummer with yellow hair which, on closer inspection was really myriad tentacles that writhed and danced as she played. Xeno threw a barrage of noise and fury at the audience, his guitar laying down grinding rumbles of chord over the beat, while screaming creatures of light emerged from the nodes on his arm to circle the room with a blistering counterpoint. 

  Your hate will seal your fate   
  Mister!   
  Oops, too fucking late   
  Mister! 

Everyone was on their feet, sweating and jumping to the powerful sound. In the front row was the unlikely sight of his biggest fan: his mother, a painfully shy and awkward woman transformed into a screaming groupie. Xeno broke character from time to time to smile at her with genuine affection. 

Mike was sweating, too, sitting at the sound board, trying to remember all the details that Xeno wanted him to catch in his sound mix. He knew he wasn’t going to be perfect for a while — maybe never — but he tried to focus on the show as a whole, not on his imperfect, amateur part in it. He was all about focus, because thinking outside his responsibilities was painful. And then Jubilee was there, sliding shyly into his space behind the board, beside the reverb units and compressors. 

  Nothing gonna cut me down!   
  No one gonna hold me down!   
  Nowhere to go but up from here!   
   _Don’t think I can’t kick your butt from here!_

He didn’t have time or concentration to decide how to react to her presence. He had to reset three different things before the next song… and his hand had to touch her as it reached over to change a preset… and as the drummer counted it in fast and hard, he was pulling her to him, putting her in his lap, kissing her neck. He gave up on perfection. He brushed away her tears before adjusting the delay on the vocal mike. He kissed her mouth as the angry guitar broke over the crowd — the anger that can only be the shadow cast by love’s brilliant light. 

When the Dazzler entered for her set, the crowd cheered long and hard before she sang a note. She acknowledged them with quiet confidence and began singing over a loop as deep and sparse as the bottom of the sea. She pulled notes like bells from her guitar. She needed no spotlight; the multicolored, shifting lights emanated from the sound waves around her. She manipulated them with mutant art, every bit as affecting as the sounds and words. The audience was utterly, utterly in her spell. 

  I carry hope in a locket   
  In a secret fold in my pocket   
  I open it up   
  On the floor of the ocean   
  A deep sea diver   
   _The only survivor_

Rogue felt like she was breathing for the first time, _gosh_ , since Liberty Island, or maybe since she’d left home five months ago. She found herself thinking of Logan, of the kindness and loyalty that hid under the gruff mask of the violent outsider. She reminded herself that it was hardly right to be thinking of another man as she leaned against her boyfriend, his long arm around her shoulders. 

  And hope is weighty   
  But it makes me buoyant   
  Makes me rise like a giant   
   _To float across your day_

Little golden spotlights flew off the strings of the Dazzler’s guitar and seemed to reach out and find them all, touch them intimately. Rogue felt her tears come and turned to bury her face in Bobby’s chest. He leaned down to comfort her, and she automatically raised a gloved hand to prevent him from accidentally touching her skin. She smiled up at the gallant boy and let her lips brush again his hair. At least she could kiss those golden curls. She thought that she had never smelled anything as sweet as Bobby Drake’s hair. 

  But when I bring you my dream   
  You tell me you can’t see it   
  I try hard not to scream   
  For it’s hard enough to be it   
  To hold the doubts at bay   
  To wonder and to cope.   
  Tell me, lover…   
   _Did I break your hope?_

Charles had slipped out discreetly during the first two sets; the sound was louder and more ferocious than he could abide. But he had returned for Alison Blaire’s performance, drawn as much by the complex timbres of the music as by the rich psychic reactions of the crowd. He closed his eyes and let his mind dance across the collective mental sigh. Music, he had found, had the remarkable effect of unifying the psychic rhythms of a crowd until they functioned, fundamentally, as a group consciousness. To his telepathic senses, it sounded like a choir in perfect harmony. 

He felt an absence in the chorus, a missing note in the harmony. Regret soured the perfection of his experience. He reached out his mind and found St. John. Hurt, anger, terrible loneliness. To delve deeper would have been self-serving and, frankly, obscene. He owed the boy his privacy and pulled away. Instead, he looked at his own cowardice, his arrogance. _I’m sorry, John._

  Am I giving all my love to you   
  Or just giving you enough rope?   
  Tell me lover…   
   _Did I break your hope?_

St. John could hear the music drifting out through the windows. The summer was upon them all, humid and demanding. Life roared in the bushes around him and in the pond on whose banks he lay, too abject to move. He had no part in the music of life; he was a dead man who had no mourners but himself. He reached out a hand that wanted to touch Bobby’s cool skin and found only mud. He wept bitterly into the grass for the end of foolish dreams. 

**END OF BOOK 3**


	26. Nostalgia

**INTERLUDE**

 

Kitty walked precise, geometric zigzags across the ground floor of the mansion, phasing through any obstacle that stood in her way. She surprised relatively few people as she ghosted into different rooms on the sultry July morning. A quarter of the mansion’s population was away for the summer and others were out enjoying themselves on the grounds of the estate. Although the academic year was over, the population of refugees had increased to the point where it was necessary for the school to offer some kind of academic and leisure programming throughout the summer months, as well as ongoing powers training. 

Sam, Dani, Doug, Jones, Terry, Neal – all were home with their families. Kitty would have been back in Deerfield with her parents except for the fact that they were in Europe at a conference where her mother was speaking. In fact, it had disappointed and confused the Prydes when she declined to join them in Amsterdam. 

“But why, Kitten?” her father had asked. “Remember what fun we had in Portugal and Spain when you were 12?” 

“I’m not 12 anymore, Daddy! I have… I have responsibilities here. Things I have to think about. You wouldn’t understand! I’m a mutant now. I-I have a different agenda.” 

This impassioned speech didn’t make sense to Kitty even as she said it. Somehow, the thought of sightseeing with her parents was just unbearable. Especially while she should be… WHAT?! Something was holding her in Westchester; some sense of incompleteness. It seemed absurd to think that it was as simple as the fact that she hadn’t finished her paper on the Holocaust. The school term was officially over, but she was still rewriting, waiting for some elusive inspiration that she knew was hiding in some source text or behind some stubborn fold of cranial matter. Obsessing wasn’t working, so she was drifting instead — not only through walls but through her own history. 

In the past week, she had found herself singing songs from favorite childhood CDs, songs about jelly beans and monkeys, and jingles from commercials for toys past. She remembered long-lost stuffed animals and the comforting feel of the red corduroy overalls she had worn when she was ten. 

In this onslaught of nostalgia, the friends and relatives were inconsequential objects, babbling at the periphery of vision while she focused on what was truly important: the line of ants marching zigzags across her parents’ bathroom floor, the utter relief of the peach smoothie at Starkman’s as the first drop touched her palette on a hot summer day. She ached for the past with a longing that was almost sexual. 

She flowed obliquely through the wall of the chemistry lab and almost collided with Bobby and Rogue who were walking, hand in glove, down the hall. “Shoot!” Rogue exclaimed, hand on her chest. Bobby looked embarrassed as usual. 

“Sorry,” Kitty mumbled without stopping. 

“You seen John Allerdyce anywhere?” Rogue called after her. “I want to invite him to go into town with us.” 

“Sorry, can’t help you,” Kitty responded as she phased through the oak paneled wall into the gym. Kitty felt sorry for the girl, sweating in all those clothes on this hot day. She imagined how horrible it would be to worry 24/7 about accidentally touching someone with that hungry skin. It was so odd, Kitty realized, that she herself had kissed Bobby but his girlfriend could not. It had been nearly a year since Kitty and Bobby had been a kind of couple — really just two weeks of frantic making out. It had ended even before Lance appeared to turn her brains to mush. She had to admit, as she made a 90 degree turn at the wall and headed back across the gym floor, that there were times when she regretted the distance that had grown between her and Bobby after Lance left. She had wondered more than once that year if they might pick up where they had left off. 

But all she had to do was remember the difference between Bobby’s passionless lip licks and the sheer transporting power of Lance Alver’s soul kisses to know that there was no relationship possible between her and Bobby. Maybe she wasn’t his type. More likely he just wasn’t mature enough to pursue a relationship — at least with a girl he could actually touch. Boys were usually not as mature as she was; she could accept that. Lance, of course, had been older, more experienced. His kisses weren’t the kisses of a boy. As much as his mutation could shake the earth, so his kisses induced tremors in her. Eight months had passed and she was still shaken. 

She realized that she had come to a halt, leaning on a vaulting horse, her hand sweating on the faux-leather surface. It was one of the few times she had been totally solid all day. _Tremors._ There were always tremors whenever the Brotherhood attacked another military facility. It had been two weeks since the last incident and she hoped they wouldn’t resume. Or did she? At least when the news reported the strategic earthquakes, she knew Lance was out there somewhere. 

Her restless energy returned, and again she let go of the hard, unforgiving world of matter, pushing through the horse and the wall and into the hall again. 

“Kitty!” David Alleyne called to her as she appeared. “Come on, they captured a mutant!” He was running down the corridor, undoubtedly towards the TV in the rec room. She followed. Scott and Jean were there, as were Clarice and Peter, and it was all over but the shouting. The TV showed helicopter shots of the aftermath of a scary battle. Troops with serious equipment. The reporter talked about green fire reigning down on the soldiers, about directed hallucinations and mutant-made earthquakes. One of the mutant combatants had been captured, and as the cameras rolled, he dislodged the cloth sack on his head with a long, flexible tongue. 

“Toad,” Jean said with grim satisfaction. “So it was the Brotherhood they were fighting.” 

“Quiet, he’s shouting something,” Scott said. 

“…Magneto lives, human worms! They killed one of us today, but a hundred, a thousand will rise up and…” The prisoner was hit with an electrical discharge weapon. He convulsed and fell still, and was quickly hustled away by the soldiers. 

The scene was horrifying, the destruction shocking. Scott snapped off the TV and Jean gently invited her to sit with them. 

“He said they killed one of the Brotherhood,” Kitty murmured, remaining where she was. “Who do you think it was?” 

Before the teachers could answer, David pushed his own question to the front of the line. “What were the Brotherhood after, Mr. Summers? This is like the fifth attack in the last two months.” 

Scott shook his head. “I’m sorry, David, Kitty. I just don’t know the answers. We’ll look into the situation and keep you informed.” 

“Yeah right,” Kitty said as a wave of anger ran through her. She turned and walked from the room. She hadn’t meant to be so rude, but honestly, asking the X-Men for information was like trying to get a straight answer out of a real estate agent. _Is it about security, or do they think we’re too young to handle the truth?_ Whatever. In her experience, they always stonewalled. But she knew how to get the information she needed. 

She marched up to her room and phased through the door. _Why not use the doorknob?_ she asked herself. Maybe pushing between atoms made her feel that she had some control over her life. Rahne was sitting on her bed, wearing shorts but no shirt, flapping her hands in the air like they were on fire while she read something online. Probably the website of that pop star boy she was so hot for, the self-proclaimed virgin. She was wearing one the plainest bras Kitty had ever seen, as if a bit of frill would offend God or something. When she saw Kitty, Rahne gave a squeak and put her hands up to cover her semi-nakedness. 

“Sorry,” Kitty told her as she went straight to her desk. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” She then realized what she’d seen. She turned back around to face her roommate. “Hey, did you color your nails?!” 

Rahne froze and blushed as red as the lacquer she had just applied. “Yeah, does it look dumb?” She displayed her hands shyly and then began flapping them again. “They’re still wet. And I was scared about getting polish on my shirt.” 

Kitty smiled encouragingly, forgetting the Brotherhood for a second. “They look awesome,” she enthused. The Rahne she had met at the beginning of last year would never have allowed herself to paint her nails, to act like such a _harlot_. Kitty felt a bit of pride for her part in the girl’s corruption. “Good for you, Rahne!” Then she remembered why she had returned to their room. “Listen, I have to do something. Hold that thought.” She woke up her laptop and checked her friends. She saw, with relief, that he was online. 

_shadowcat says: Doug, I need info._   
_boweroftable says: Brotherhood takedown?_   
_shadowcat says: Exactly. how ru?_   
_boweroftable says: Alpha uno. Up at the lake with my ‘rents. Jones and_   
_his family are here 2. Nobody can get him to go outside_   
_shadowcat says: let him b. he’s jones. What happened today?_   
_boweroftable says: Army was ready for them this time. Intelligence? A_   
_mole? Can’t say 4 sure._   
_shadowcat says: WTF are the brotherhood after, anyway? Y attack army bases?_   
_boweroftable says: I figure army is testing anti-mutant tech.  
_

“Shit,” she muttered. 

“What?” Rahne said. Kitty ignored her. 

_shadowcat says: They killed a mutant._   
_boweroftable says: I know_ . 

A large video window suddenly filled her screen. From it, Doug stared out with a sun burnt nose, wet hair and a towel over his bare shoulders. “Are you worried it’s Lance?” he asked, his voice squeezed thin by the little speakers. 

She tried to sound calmer than she felt. “We have no way of knowing, right? There could have been a dozen mutants fighting. Anyone of them could be… the one.” 

Doug rubbed his peeling nose. “We know he was there. All the news reports talked about earth tremors.” 

With what seemed an act of excessive digital roughhousing, Doug’s video window was shoved up into the corner of the monitor by another containing the pale face of Hayward Jones. “Hi, Kitty!” he enthused. 

“Uh, hi Jones,” she responded. “How’s the lake?” 

“Wet probably. Listen, I’ve been thinking about the security system at the mansion,” he said. “There’s a big hole in it if someone with a half a brain were to —” 

“Do you mind?” Doug said with annoyance from his now postage-stamp-sized window. “Get off this screen, Jones. Me and Kitty are trying to talk here.” 

“Well, where do you expect me to go, Doug?!” he asked as if it were a reasonable question. His eyes went wide. “Oh hey, I got it.” His window collapsed on itself and Doug resumed control of Kitty’s screen. Across the room, Rahne shrieked. Kitty spun around and saw Jones’s face on her monitor. “Hi Rahne! Hey, you’re not wearing a shirt! Whoa…” 

“Kitty!” Rahne called in distress, not knowing how to escape her cyber peeper. 

“Cover your cam,” Kitty called. “Doug, make him go away!” 

“Jones,” Doug cried in the kind of excited voice you use to get a dog’s interest. “My mom has coconut brownies out on the porch!” Jones’s mouth fell open and his window blinked out of existence, revealing again the undisguised sexual hunger of Rahne’s virgin pop idol. 

Doug dried his hair with his towel. There was sweet birdsong around him and the distant sound of a woman’s voice. “Kitty, I gotta go. Mom’s calling us for lunch. I’ll ping you right away when I find out more.” 

Kitty wandered outside disconsolate, her backpack heavy with texts. She would focus on her essay, finally get the damn thing done. She had been reading and reading, but nothing seemed like the right source text. Holocaust memoirs, accounts of the Wannsee Conference where the so-called “final solution” was hammered out. She came upon John Allerdyce with a pile of books of his own, sheltering from the sun in the shade of an enormous oak tree, his back to the trunk. She dropped to the ground beside him without a greeting, knowing he hated to be interrupted. Silence was just fine with her, too. 

After a minute, she remembered something. “Rogue is looking for you.” 

“Then let her look for me,” he said without raising his head from his book. 

Kitty turned to check out what he was reading. ‘The Motorcycle Diaries.’ She bent to examine the books in his pile. “‘The Writings of Mao Zedong,’ ‘Malcolm X Speaks Out.’ Feeling revolutionary, John?” 

He looked at her over the top of his book, unknowingly mirroring the familiar image of Che Guevara on the cover. “I suddenly realized that poems about sunsets and bunnies weren’t going to change the world,” he said. 

“Maybe not, but there’s less innocent blood spilled at a poetry reading than a coup d’état.” 

“There’s always blood spilled, Pryde,” he explained as if she was a child. “Maybe if you’re not willing to fight, that blood will be yours.” 

She squinted at him. “You really believe that?” 

“I’m entertaining the concept.” 

“We all need entertainment, I guess.” She realized she had missed a thinner book at the bottom of the pile. She pulled it out. “‘The Coming of _Homo Superior_.’ Magneto? You’re reading Magneto?” 

“Excuse me for being relevant.” John mumbled, dropping back into his book and turning away from her. 

Kitty picked up the Magneto and wandered around to sit on the far side of the tree. She flipped through the thin tome, reading whatever bits and pieces happened to catch her eye. 

_What kind of base cowardice would lead our people into voluntary submission to humanity?_

She flipped forward. 

_Feel the power course through your veins, young mutant. It is yours to glory in, yours to use, however you see fit. For who can stand in judgment over us? Who occupies a lofty enough summit to write rules for our kind?_

Kitty sneered in disgust. _What a self-important windbag._ Flip. 

_The Americans opened wide the gates of the camp and we stepped out into a world without limits. How did my fellow prisoners react to their newfound freedom? They cowered. They had grown used to the walls of their cage. Imagine their relief when they ended up in the DP camps, not so filthy as Auschwitz, but just as much a prison._   
_I did not follow them to their new cage. With food in me and a day of rest, I became aware of how much my powers had grown since I first entered the camp. The soldiers could not stop me as I walked away. I made an example of one, impaling him with a spiked bar from the very gates he had opened for us. I raised him high in the air and considered his gutted corpse as it turned in the sun. For the first time, I realized I was not the same species as the humans._   
_I swore never to be imprisoned by them again._

Kitty found Professor Xavier enjoying the sunshine on the back patio of the mansion, listening to music on his mp3 player with his eyes closed, a look of perfect peace on his face. “What can I do for you, Kitty?” he asked, eyes still shut. 

The metal patio chair scraped loudly on the flagstones as she pulled it beside him and sat down. “Professor, you know how I’m still working on my history paper?” 

He smiled, but did not open his eyes. “Yes, we all fervently hope you will hand it in before you leave us for college at the end of next year. Please don’t block the sun, my dear.” 

She leaned back and her shadow retreated from his face. “See, that’s just it… I’ve been looking for something, but I didn’t know what it was. And now I do.” 

The Professor reminded her of a cat as he basked in the warming rays. He practically purred. “And is this ‘something’ something I can help you with?” 

“Yes, I want to interview Magneto.” 

Xavier’s eyes snapped open. 

 

It was two days before he approached her to say arrangements had been made. 

“Where is the prison anyway, Professor?” she asked, her heart pounding. 

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to divulge that information, Kitty. National security and all. However, it won’t take us overly long to reach him. Please retrieve your interview questions and meet me at the sub-basement elevator in fifteen minutes.” 

She was there in ten, binder under her arm, wondering where they would be going. Xavier arrived in his wheelchair a few minutes later and they entered the elevator. Clearly they were taking the jet, so one of the other teachers had to be going. She hoped it was Ororo. _Maybe they have Magneto in a super prison somewhere in the wastes of Alaska!_ she thought. _But the Professor didn’t tell me to bring a jacket or anything._

As they descended, Xavier spoke to her. “I am trusting you to keep your wits about you, Kitty, and to remain unruffled if he goads you. Erik... Magneto likes to push people’s buttons, as psychologists say these days.” She nodded seriously, feeling an odd combination of dread and excitement. 

As she followed him through the lower levels, she became confused. Unless she was turned around (which she knew she wasn’t), they were heading away from the hangar. They came to a door she didn’t recognize. She jumped back as a beam of light shot out from the center of the door’s ubiquitous ‘X’ design and lit up the Professor’s eyeball. _A retinal scanner!_

“Welcome, Professor,” intoned a robot voice, female as these things usually were. 

The door slid open and Kitty’s jaw dropped. 

Xavier smiled at her reaction. “Welcome to Cerebro, Kitty.” 

Kitty wandered onto the bridge in a daze, trying to take it all in. “It’s huge, Professor!” 

“Yes, it certainly is bigger than I would wish. I’ve had some interesting discussions with Forge about how we could someday build a more portable version. Luckily, we aren’t running the Institute out of a studio apartment in the City. Please have a seat.” 

He indicated an old-fashioned wooden chair, simple but well-made, to the right of the control panel. It seemed singularly out of place in the room of steel. She sat on the woven cane seat and placed her binder on the floor beside her. As Xavier put the control helmet on and activated the mammoth machine, something horrible occurred to her. “But… don’t you use Cerebro to find mutants? Did Magneto _escape_?!” 

Xavier smiled again and in that smile, she saw something of the showman. He was trying to impress her. “I use Cerebro to enhance my own psychic abilities. I can find mutants with it, but there is much more I can do.” Overhead, the various panels of the sphere were shifting and pulsing. Watching it made her feel oddly dizzy. “Please prepare yourself, Kitty,” Xavier said. 

_For what?_ she wanted to reply, but she couldn’t feel her lips move, couldn’t feel the breath escape from her own lungs, couldn’t hear the sound reach her own ear… _because she was gone._

. . . 

Kitty realizes her eyes are closed. She opens them cautiously and peers around the gloomy space. She is no longer in the huge, echoing room that smells of technology and lubricating oils. The air here is close and warm and redolent of pine. She is still sitting on the same chair of cane and wood, and when she looks for Xavier, she finds him occupying an identical seat. She almost falls out of hers as the man rises on legs miraculously cured of their paralysis. He smiles and holds out a hand. “Shall we go and meet Magneto?” he asks. 

She takes his warm hand and allows herself to be helped to her feet. “Don’t forget your notes,” he says. She looks down and is surprised to see her binder by the legs of the chair, just as it had been in Cerebro. They walk across a well-worn, braided runner towards the unfinished oak door. Xavier pauses a moment with his hand on the door, as if relishing the feel of the wood under his fingers, before he swings it wide and holds it open for her. 

The man is inside, dressed in simple white coveralls which emphasize the whiteness of his hair. He seems older and more vulnerable than he looked the night of the attack on the Turcott clinic. Dressed in his elegant costume, with his cape and boots, he had been a striking figure. Invincible. Now he’s just an old man. Eyes closed, he is seated on yet another of the elegant little chairs, as if that is the default starting point for each of them in this adventure. 

They are all together in a cabin in the woods. The floor and walls are rough-hewn and sturdy. Through the windows, she sees the pine forest. The day is sunny, and though she knows it is early July back at the mansion, here there is the melancholy of early autumn in the angle of the sun and in the chill wind that makes the trees shake. The room is spartan, but the few decorations are clearly expensive. There is a fire in the hearth and a kettle on the wood stove that is just beginning to boil. 

Magneto seems to be asleep in his chair, and he is so still, she wonders if he is even breathing. Kitty looks at the Professor in confusion as he walks to the stove and pours the boiling water into the Limoges teapot that sits on the counter. “Will you have cream, Kitty? Sugar?” 

“Just cream, please,” she hears herself say automatically. Xavier pours cream in one empty cup and puts two sugars into a second cup. The third he leaves alone. “Please have a seat on the couch.” She sits. _This can’t be real!_ she concludes. But the crinkle and creak of the furniture beneath her seems to belie that conclusion. 

“Erik,” Professor Xavier says gently and Magneto takes a sudden, gasping breath. His eyes open. He is not confused; he is alert and curious. His eyes narrow with interest as he notices Kitty and then widen when he looks around at the room. 

He laughs. “A veritable parade of nostalgia, Charles! You are getting sentimental in your old age.” He picks up a porcelain horse from a doily on the rustic table beside his chair. “Ha! You remembered everything, didn’t you?” 

The Professor seems somewhat abashed, something she has never seen before. “I wanted us all to be comfortable, and I thought a familiar setting might…” He clears his throat. “Katherine Pryde, I’d like to introduce Erik Lensherr.” 

The white-haired man gives him a caustic look before rising to shake her hand. “Magneto is my name, child. Pleased to meet you.” 

She reaches for his hand cautiously and then retracts hers in confusion, jumping to her feet and circling the room in agitation. “Professor! What is this? Where are we?!” 

“Please be calm, Kitty. It was not possible to bring you to the prison, so I have brought us together here in my mind.” He taps his temple, as if that gesture explained everything. 

She stares at him and then turns to face Magneto who seems terribly amused at her reaction. She gives him a caustic look of her own. “Is he even here? Is this really Erik Lensherr, or a… a figment of…?” She has no appropriate vocabulary for what is happening. 

“I assure you, my dear, I am who I say,” Magneto answers. “Your _Professor_ …” He says the word with the smallest curl of sarcasm. “…has become very clever with Cerebro. In the real world, I appear to my jailers to be enjoying an afternoon nap.” He moves to an armchair whose upholstery matches the couch. “Now why don’t we sit down. You have some questions for me and, while I welcome this distraction, my time is limited.” 

“Is it?” Charles says as he pours the tea. “I can’t imagine you’re going anywhere, Erik.” 

“Apparently someone _else_ is terribly anxious to interview me. Someone military, is my guess. I hope he is at least slightly amusing.” 

There is no choice. She has to accept the situation at face value: they are inside the Professor’s head, and though the warm and fragrant tea he hands her (“Be careful, it’s hot.”) does not exist, this is indeed Magneto. 

Having accepted the quasi-reality, she is suddenly nervous to be interviewing the dangerous, fascinating mutant. She picks up her binder and begins flipping through to find her questions. “Okay, um, lets get going, then. Did you know you were a mutant before you arrived at the… at Auschwitz?” She looks up and finds him staring at her levelly with a penetrating gaze. 

He stirs his tea and takes a sip (he’s the one with the two sugars, she notes). “No, my manifestation coincided with my arrival.” 

That piques her curiosity. Her mind fills with images of Jews arriving in cattle cars, already half-dead. Families separated, belongings confiscated. And in the middle of this nightmare, the boy Magneto underwent that horrible, wonderful transformation. She suddenly has dozens of questions for him, but they don’t feel appropriate. He is still giving her his full attention. Flustered, she looks down at her notes. “Um, and were you aware of any other mutants during your time there?” 

“I had my suspicions about a few, but there was one who stood out. I believe now that he might have been a teleporter, unable to control his comings and goings. His mysterious transportations got him more than one beating from the guards when he was found in places he shouldn’t have been. One day he vanished altogether.” 

“Did he escape?” Kitty asked, caught up by the drama. 

“Possibly. Or else he was taken to the hospital and dissected like a rat by Mengele.” He is watching her for a reaction. She knows she is giving him one, her jaw slack, her cheeks coloring. 

“My God, Erik,” Xavier mutters. “You never told me about him.” 

Kitty is looking at her notes for the next question, but the text seems to be swimming in front of her. _Get it together!_ she warns herself. She clears her throat, stalling for time. 

“Yes?” Magneto says and smiles wryly. He is enjoying making her squirm. 

This realization seems to center her. It doesn’t matter who he is, she decides; she’s not going to be intimidated. She finds the next question and looks him squarely in the eye. “How has your experience as a Jew and a Holocaust survivor influenced your politics?” 

“I am not a Jew,” he answers coolly. 

She quirks her mouth. “But, I thought… the Professor told me that you —” 

“I bear no allegiance to any human tribe, nor pray to any human god. I am a mutant. Next question.” His face is cold, his pronouncement final. But she is not done. 

“Wait a sec, you were born a Jew, right?” 

“Yes.” 

“Your parents were —” 

“My human parents are unimportant. I was reborn the day I manifested.” 

Kitty’s cheeks color again. She puts down her binder and crosses her arms, staring back at him. “That’s… preposterous. Sir.” She looks nervously at the Professor, but he just raises an eyebrow and gives a small nod. 

Magneto doesn’t miss the gesture. He leans forward. “Come, child, don’t let Charles’s sentimentality infect you. Mutants are as cuckoos. We are born in the nest of _homo sapiens_ and suffer them to nurture us before we come into our true selves; but we are not _of_ them.” 

Kitty is outraged. “Look, I may be a mutant, but I’m still Kitty Pryde. My faith has taught me to be a good person! And my parents helped make me who I am! Their values, their love —” 

Magneto cuts her off with equal vehemence. “…are irrelevant to a talented young mutant such as yourself. Don’t you see it is your right to take the world they have prepared for you? When we no longer have to hide, when we breed among ourselves and raise our own mutant children with pride, then we will realize the true glory of the mutant family. When the human race concedes our right to rule, then will a new day dawn for this planet.” 

She stares at him, unable to find a response. 

He smiles in triumph. “Any more questions, Miss Pryde? Or are you off to the synagogue to chant _Sh’ma Yisrael_ and get the sour taste of my words out of your mouth?” 

Kitty rises to her feet, ready to shout profanities at the arrogant man, but somehow, she catches herself. She releases the breath she has been holding and lowers herself into her seat again. “Yes, one more question, if you don’t mind. You were a boy when the Nazis took you and your family from your home and sent you to the death camp, correct?” 

“Yes,” he responds, showing his boredom. 

“Because you were a Jew?” 

“Yes.” 

She leans forward with a look of concern on her face, tilting her head in eloquent empathy. “Is your emulation of Hitler — read ‘human’ for ‘Jew’ and ‘mutant’ for ‘Aryan race’ — conscious? Or do you think it’s some kind of emotional displacement? A kind of juvenile revenge fantasy writ large?” 

He freezes. His lip curls in anger and he raises his hand toward her with terrible authority. But there is no phantom metal here in Xavier’s head that will respond to his powers. Scowling, he lowers his hand again. 

“Have you ever considered growing a moustache, Mr. Lensherr?” She delivers the line deadpan and now Magneto smiles coldly. 

“She’s a sharp one, isn’t she, Charles? You’d better warn her, though; that mouth could get her in trouble one of these days.” 

She looks at Xavier and realizes he is far from displeased. “I assure you, she has been told,” the Professor replies. 

Magneto suddenly springs to his feet and looms over her. She squeezes herself back into the sofa which creaks in protest, but she can’t phase. Here in Xavier’s cottage of the mind, her powers are as useless as Magneto’s. “You’re very smart with your charming egalitarian fantasies, Miss Pryde,” he tells her in a low voice. “But you had better wake up and quickly. Your beloved American government has been working on anti-mutant weaponry. It is my Brotherhood who have been trying to stop them, not your Professor, nor his _X-Men!_ ” He twists the word in his mouth like a bitter root. 

He brings his face closer to hers. “They killed one of us this week. He was brave and talented, fighting to save our kind. Are you so brave, or will you be like all those Jews who walked meekly to the gas chambers, stupefied, refusing to the last to believe that humankind could perpetrate such evil?” 

He stands and wipes mind-dust off his mind-sleeves. He walks to the window and looks out at the forest. Her heart is pounding, and she wonders what he is feeling. 

Xavier’s voice is quiet and serious. “Erik, I know you have no access to any media. How do you know what is happening with your Brotherhood?” 

Magneto turns to him and Kitty sees he has reined in his emotions. He is again the man in charge. “Her name is Message. She’s a psi-broadcaster. One-way telepathy, but very powerful and precise. My own little New York Times home delivery.” He looks around the room as if trying to memorize the details. He sighs. “Well, Charles, Miss Pryde, this has been delightful, though I don’t wish to do it again. Do you mind if I go out through the front door, Charles? The illusion might be… amusing.” 

The Professor stands and Kitty thinks that Magneto is not the only one here seeking solace in illusion. Xavier’s voice is sympathetic and fond, and she realizes how much he cares about his arch enemy. “Of course, Erik. Kitty, please thank Mr. Lensherr for his time.” 

Magneto raises a preemptory hand. “No, don’t demand false words from her, Charles. She has no more taste for them than I.” He turns and walks to the front door, opening it wide to the woods beyond. Cool, pine-laden breeze wafts in, making the pages in her open binder flutter. 

“Magneto,” she calls after him and he turns in the door. “Who was the mutant that died?” 

“Avalanche,” he replies. “The one you knew as Lance Alvers. He was a passionate young man, dedicated to our cause. I mourn his passing.” 

“Thank you,” she replies quietly. He nods and leaves, closing the door behind him. 

She doesn’t know what to feel. There is something horribly unsurprising in the news, as if she has expected to hear it every day since he left the mansion. Anger. She is angry at Lance. Yes, that will do for now. 

“Kitty…” the Professor says softly and moves towards her, but she can’t bear the thought of this walking phantom touching her and she raises a hand to stop him. 

“Can we… just go home, please?” 

. . . 

  

*** 

 

“Thanks for the drink, Rahne,” Kitty said, enjoying the coolness of the soda can in her hands. It was another hot day, and the mansion’s outdated air conditioning was no match for the afternoon sun in their dorm. Despite the heat, the small room had been her refuge in the last few days, and in it, she had stayed resolutely corporeal. 

“No problem,” her roommate replied, lingering. “You let me know if there’s anything I can… you know.” She leaned in and hugged Kitty a little awkwardly, though Kitty could feel the genuine affection in the gesture. 

When she was gone, Kitty pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Mom?” 

“Kitty, honey? Is that you? How are you?” 

“I’m okay. Did your talk go well in Amsterdam?” 

“Yes, it was very well received. I was so nervous. I haven’t spoken in public in three years! Yes, well… Do you want to talk to your father? He’s right here!” 

“Hey, Dad.” 

“Hey yourself.” 

“How was Amsterdam? You get stoned in one of those cafés?” 

“No. Do you think I should have?” 

“Heh, maybe.” 

“Kitten, is everything okay?” 

“Sure.” 

“’Cause you sound a bit… off.” 

“Dad? You know how I said I didn’t want to come to Europe?” 

“Yeah, Kitten. That’s okay. We understand.” 

“What I mean to say is… Is it too late? I could fly over and meet you in Paris. I-I think I want to. If you still want me.” 


	27. Thrown

**BOOK 4: RIVEN, REVELLING, REVILED**

Jean looked around at the expectant faces before her: Bobby Drake, Jubilation Lee, Sam Guthrie, Terry O’Rourke, Doug Ramsey and John Allerdyce. She could feel their emotions move through her, like a fluttering bird in her chest. Excitement, trepidation, determination. She smiled at the group. 

“You are to be the next generation of X-Men. Congratulations. This is an honor and a deep commitment. We will work hard together to make sure you are ready before you face the dangers our enemies have planned for us.” 

The kids were seated on the grass and in lawn chairs behind her parents’ house in Connecticut, all except for Sam who was on a limb of the old Norway Maple. The fact that they were holding their first training session there of all places made her realize she was dreaming. _Still,_ she thought, _That shouldn’t matter. Scott is counting on me to prepare them._ The students sipped tall glasses of her mother’s lemonade. 

“Okay, I want you standing in a line. Yes, Terry, order yourselves by height. Good idea. Count off, ‘one, two, one, two, etc.’” 

A blue jay made a raucous scream from high in the maple. The sound pierced her mind like a needle going through the skin of a balloon. The balloon was filled with something red and hot. 

Doug craned his head up to find the bird and shouted with glee, “That means ‘Predator!’ ‘Predator!’” 

Jean felt the anger surge through her like something red and hot. Who did this boy think he was? How could someone so weak have been chosen to join the X-Men? “ _Akhsîfni divrr’rBrekhti Dràvan!_ ” she shouted at him. She had no idea what the words meant but Doug, who could understand any language, seemed to. He went white, nodded and moved sheepishly to the end of the line of students. When they counted off, his voice sounded small and frightened. 

She smiled encouragingly at them, remembering the importance of positive reinforcement. “Good, now I want the teams on opposite sides of the yard, facing each other. On my go, you will try to be the first to touch the birdbath in the center of the lawn. Help your teammates reach the goal and try to stop the opposing team in any way you can.” 

The kids looked uneasily at each other and Jean laughed, a throaty, deeply sexual sound that embarrassed her. “Don’t hold back. Do you think our enemies will? You are fire! Feel your powers flow through you, red and hot.” She felt her own power rolling deep in her belly. “On my mark… and GO!” 

The students attacked each other with startling vigor. Jubilee was positively ferocious, stunning Terry with a intense barrage of fireworks before her scream could emerge. Sam exploded into the air and flew for the birdbath, but he was knocked sideways by a huge fireball from John. Sam crashed to the ground, stunned and John looked Jean’s way with a satisfied grin. 

“Good boy, Pyro. You’ll earn your power source yet.” Suddenly she saw a flash of movement and the terrible fury welled up in her again. Doug Ramsey was racing, unchallenged for the birdbath. “Stop him, you weaklings! His power is _nothing!_ ” Bobby tried to trip the boy by icing the grass; John shot fireballs that missed their mark, and still the boy weaved and ran. “Goddammit!” Jean screamed and the lawn furniture flew into the air and began whirling overhead as if gripped in its own private tornado. 

Doug was almost at his goal, all their efforts wasted. But then Sam Guthrie was struggling to his feet. He ran and took flight with a roar like a jet engine, hurtling across the lawn and smashing into Doug with a terrible, wet sound. He landed shakily, red and hot, turning with his fellows to witness the result. Doug lay dead, sliced completely in two at the waist, the grass crimson with gore. High in the air, the lawn chairs swirled, the blue jay screamed. 

Sam looked at her, a little unsure. “Uh, Dr. Phoenix, did I do good?” 

She just laughed and rose into the air, burning, burning with joy. _“Let loose! Let loose!”_ she cried. 

Jean awoke with a start, her heart pounding. The dawning sun was behind the curtains and the bedroom shimmered with pale light. She saw movement in the dimness. Blinking, she peered out and realized that objects all around the room — brushes, books, the alarm clock, the waste basket — had risen one or two inches in the air where they wavered ever so slightly, as if in a light breeze. She gasped and everything fell back in place with a collective clunk. A small bud vase teetered on its base before slipping off the edge of the dresser and smashing as it hit the hardwood. 

Scott snorted and said, “wuzzah…” 

She was about to answer when she remembered the dream. _The dream! What did I dream…?_ It was already just out reach. Blood. Students dying? _Damn!_ She couldn’t bring it back. Whatever it was, it had spooked her, made her lose control of her powers. _Relax,_ she told herself. _It’s a new school year; that’s all. You’re nervous about the new school year._

Scott rose up on his elbows, staring at her with complete clarity. The Team Leader of the X-Men — from groggy to alert in six seconds. He was wearing his sleeping goggles with the thick elastic strap that prevented them accidentally slipping off. He looked from her to the broken vase and back, his jaw tightening perceptibly. “What’s happening, sweetie?” 

“Nothing Scott,” she said too brightly. She had a bad feeling about this dream, about her loss of control, but she wasn’t ready to share her concern yet. She needed time to investigate it herself. Perhaps she would do an encephalogram later that morning. She waved casually towards the pile of brightly painted shards. “It must have fallen off.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “Jean, did you do that? In your sleep?” 

“I-I’m not sure. It’s just that kitschy bud vase my aunt gave us. And it was chipped, anyway.” 

He put an encouraging hand on her back. “But it wasn’t just the vase, was it? I heard… And this isn’t the first time. You’ve been losing control of your TK in your sleep.” 

She definitely didn’t want this conversation now, but challenging Scott was not the way to get him to drop a subject. She reached under the covers and found what she knew she would: his morning erection. She made a little sound in her throat — almost a purr. “Mmm, good morning. I see your staff is up early, Assistant Headmaster.” 

He gave a little groan as she slipped a soft hand around his dick. “Jean, come on, I’m serious. I’m worried about… oh, man…” 

“Too hard?” 

“No, but… go a bit slower, yeah.” He lay back down, one hand stroking her ass, the other, his own nipple. “We have to talk about the… TK… later, okay?” 

“Mmm,” she moaned encouragingly, but said nothing. She was half-remembering strange words in an unknown language. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby moved down the hall amid the sea of small people and voices called out, “Hi Bobby! Hi Bobby!” He greeted them in return, giving out high fives, playful noogies and words of encouragement. He had known that September would bring a greatly increased student body, but he hadn’t quite grasped how odd that would feel. 

First, there had been the new refugees who had continued to arrive at their doorstep throughout the summer, scared and desperate victims of a war that had not been officially declared. Then there were the new recruits Professor Xavier had located with Cerebro. And finally there were the kids whose parents had followed many a strange path and distant rumor to find the School for Gifted Youngsters. They were desperate to get their mutant kids safely to Westchester before their status was discovered in their own communities. Some were also afraid to live with their untrained mutant children who could demolish the house with an accidental loss of control. 

If there was a common denominator with all these students, it was that they were a lot younger than he and the other first class had been: lots of 13 and 14 year olds and a few as young as 12 and 11. It changed the dynamic of the school. It required seniors like him to take on more authority, breaking up fights and handing out hugs. It required Bobby Drake, Universal Big Brother. 

As he approached the gym, he found Peter down on one knee listening to Flea, his own newly adopted “little brother” excitedly tell him about his first powers class. “Sarah made the orange explode! Mr. Summers got totally squirted in the face.” 

Peter laughed and tousled the boy’s spiky hair. “And how did you do? Did they find out how high you could jump?” 

“Uh-huh. I got right up to the roof on the first go! Everybody cheered.” 

Flea had arrived late on a stormy August night along with his friend, Artie. The two 13-year-olds had been on a terrifying trek across three states, escaping from a foster home where they where they had been terrorized after their powers manifested. A third boy, one they called Leach, had been caught one night when they were running from the police. The Professor had so far been unable to find him. 

It was Peter who had opened the door for the soaking wet boys. Even though they had been on the run for days, walking and hitchhiking to reach the secret mutant sanctuary they had read about online, it had taken an hour to talk Flea into actually venturing inside. Peter’s gentle patience had won the day, and since then the two were inseparable. Flea had even moved in with Peter and John in a room not really big enough for three. Bobby wondered what John, who liked his privacy, thought about that. He and John didn’t share confidences anymore, so he didn’t know the answer. 

“Hi, Bobby,” Peter said, looking up. “I guess we better get inside or we’ll be in trouble with the boss!” He turned to Flea. “See you at dinner, buddy.” 

Bobby watched Flea run off to join his friends and found himself remembering his little brother, Ronny, at that age. While home in Boston in July, he had tried to patch up the rift that had grown between them, but Ronny had been forever out with his friends or hiding in his room. In the end, they had hardly talked. How ironic was it that he could be big brother to everyone except his own flesh and blood? 

As he and Peter entered the gym, Bobby found himself thinking of his life as a series of lost friendships: Ronny, Scott, Lance (who was _dead!_ Somehow Bobby kept forgetting that), Kitty. And John. He didn’t understand why they had all given up on him. He felt cursed. 

Jubilee and Rogue were stretching on warm-up mats and laughing about something. “Bobby, honey!” Rogue called and patted the mat to her right. “Sit here. You look good in the shirt.” The iridescent, powder blue tee had been a gift from his girlfriend for his 17 th birthday in August. He ran his hands down the shiny material and smiled gratefully at her. 

Jubilee looked up at the clock on the wall. “This session was called for 3:30, guys. I need you to be on time.” 

Bobby checked the time. It was just turning 3:36. He was about to remind her that she wasn’t a teacher, and that they had just finished a long day of classes, but Peter apologized for them. He promised they would be on time from now on. Jubilee nodded seriously in response. The whole room seemed to vibrate with _serious_ , and Bobby was beginning to regret agreeing to this. 

Jubilee said, “Okay, I want to talk about some stuff before we start.” The gym door crashed open again and everyone turned to watch John saunter in. They were all dressed in X-sweats, but he was in jeans. Jubilee called out, “Hey, John! You joining us? That’s awesome!” 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Really? I didn’t think this was your, uh —” 

“Cup of tea?” John smirked. “Well, I’m not a tough guy like Battlin’ Bobby Drake and his trembling teacups, but —” 

Bobby felt his face grow hot, and he wished he could come up with fast rejoinders the way John could. Rogue put a hand on his arm. “Hush now. He’s here and he’s welcome. And you sit down and behave yourself, too, John Allerdyce. Jubilee has a few things to say to us.” John gave Bobby a dark look and slumped cross-legged on a mat to Jubilee’s left. 

Jubilee stood up, legs wide, hands clasped behind her back and, one-by-one looked them in the eye. “Thank you, Rogue. Okay, you know why we’re here. We’re the first students at the school who will turn 18, the first ones who will be eligible to be X-Men.” Bobby felt a little lump of doubt bobbing in his throat as she continued. “If we want the teachers to take us seriously, we have to work extra hard. Powers class and combat class aren’t going to be enough. We need to be in top physical and mental condition and know our shit inside out. We’re going to meet here two times a week for 90 minutes. Sometimes we’ll work out on our own and sometimes one of the teachers will be able to give us some of their time. Any questions?” 

John half-raised his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Why aren’t we in the Danger Room? I want to blast some cool simulated monsters.” 

Jubilee wiggled her fingers back at him, little sparks dancing across them. “I know! That would be so cool. But Storm and Cyclops say we have to get the fundamentals down before we play with their toys. I guess they’re right. They say that after Christmas, they’ll take us to —” Her head suddenly jerked up and she looked past them with a surprised expression. “Oh, hi.” They all turned and saw Kitty standing by the back wall, where she had presumably just phased in. “I didn’t think you wanted to —” 

“Get a black leather X-suit? I’m more of a 100% cotton girl, thanks,” Kitty said with a pointedly casual air. “I’m just gonna watch. If that’s okay.” 

Jubilee put a hand on her hip and chewed her lower lip like she was about to say no, but then she nodded. “Fine, just don’t get in the way. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.” 

“Don’t worry,” Kitty answered with a wry smile. “Nothing touches me unless I want it to.” She climbed up the small bleacher section and sat in the last row, cracking open her math text and peering down into it, apparently absorbed by what she found there. 

“Okay,” Jubilee said, pulling their attention back away from the Kitty’s somewhat unnerving presence. “Let’s do some warm ups.” 

She let Bobby lead them through a series of stretches before she took control of the session again. “Now we’ll try some simple attacks and blocks. Let’s pair off. There’s five of us, so we’ll have to switch up some. Come on Peter, you start with me.” 

Peter seemed amused. “Maybe I’m a little big for you, Jubilee. Mr. Summers usually pairs us by size.” 

She shook her head. “I don’t think the Brotherhood will be that considerate. Oh, and I want us using codenames. So, come on, Colossus, show me what you got.” 

“Me and Iceman,” John announced, jumping to his feet. Bobby shot him a look. “S’matter, you don’t think I can take you?” John asked. Bobby rose slowly. He knew he was way better in combat class than John, but if he had to prove it, then that’s what he would do. He felt his fists clenching. 

Rogue stood, too, putting a concerned hand on Bobby’s arm. “Now, you boys play nice,” she said. 

“Fuck _nice_ , Rogue,” Jubilee said. “We’re the new X-Men. We’re here to get the job done.” 

They began easily, running and tumbling by the book. As he had predicted, Bobby was able to take down John or block his attacks most of the time; after all, he had straight ‘A’s in combat class. But as they continued — hearts beating faster, the smell of sweat rising in the air — John’s attacks grew more intense. Bobby began countering with more force, too, sending John flying again and again. 

“You’re pretty tough, Iceman,” John smirked after landing hard on the mat. Their contacts were strange; hands gripping each other’s bodies with the familiarity of lovers but the intent of enemies. The arm that flailed before Bobby’s face was the same arm that had cradled his head as they slept. The legs spread wide for leverage had opened to him in passion. He felt his sex responding, but he knew he couldn’t go there. He threw John down with the intense concentration he had once used to bring him to orgasm. John slammed into the mat, and this time he laughed harshly as his breath returned. “Fuck.” 

“Don’t give up, Pyro,” Jubilee called, out of breath and more than a little familiar with the floor herself. “Show him who’s boss.” 

Bobby watched John nod and stand slowly. He walked back to his starting place, apparently ready to be thrown all day. Bobby realized the others were all watching their battle, Kitty included. He felt suddenly self-conscious and a little bit sorry for John. He turned back to his opponent in time to see him launch himself with a snarl and gleam of cold fire in his eyes. 

Bobby’s timing was thrown by the sudden ferocity of the attack and he missed the hold he had been trying for. “Wait!” he shouted, but by then he was tumbling off balance. He landed hard on his back, the wind knocked out of him, stunned by the speed with which he found himself upended. 

“That’s how it’s done, Pyro,” Jubilee shouted and raised a fist in victory. Bobby felt wounded by her support of John’s unfair attack. _I wasn’t ready, dammit_! She turned to Peter, “Okay, Colossus, you’re in trouble now.” And when the big guy attacked, she sent him flying. She helped him to his feet and walked over to share a high-five with John. 

Bobby was still on his back in a state of disbelief. Rogue appeared above him and said, “Come on, honey, everyone goes down some time.” 

He stood, embarrassed, and glared at John who said, “In the real world, Bobby boy, the good guys don’t always win.” 

“Code names!” Kitty reminded from the back of the room, and they all turned in time to watch her phase out through the wall. 

At the end of the session, Jubilee thanked them all for their hard work and walked out with John, the two grinning and gabbing enthusiastically. 

“Why is she in charge anyway?” Bobby asked no one in particular. 

Peter was on the floor, stretching out his legs. “The idea of organizing extra training was hers. We agreed to it. Why shouldn’t she be in charge?” 

Bobby hadn’t meant to start a discussion with his petulant comment, but now he felt obliged to defend his position. “But Pete, you’ve been here longer. You’re older. The staff considered you and Dani the leaders last year. Doesn’t it bug you?” 

He thought about Dani, who lad left school to care for her ailing Grandfather, the man who had raised her. “He needs me, and so does my community,” she had said, putting aside her own pain at leaving. Duty was duty. Bobby couldn’t help wondering if she might have been the best leader. 

Peter smiled indulgently. “No, it doesn’t bug me. We all contribute in so many ways. Look how much you’re helping with the new kids. Besides, when Dani left, I was glad to turn in my ‘head prefect’ badge.” Bobby must have looked confused because Peter added, “Metaphorical badge, I mean.” 

Rogue, who had been doing chin-ups at the far end of the gym joined them. “Besides, with Mike gone back to Boston, she needs a job to focus on. She must be hurting somethin’ awful.” 

“We all need a role to play, Bobby,” Peter said. He excused himself and headed for the showers. Bobby wondered, _What’s my role?_

He was still pissed off, so he tried to shake himself out of the mood by working through his combat patterns. Each one required precision and he was good at them. _Set and turn and lunge and block…_ In his peripheral vision, he saw Rogue watching him, clearly waiting for a moment to interrupt because she probably thought they should _talk about what’s botherin’ you, sugah_. He kept his face stony, turned away from her, kicking, ducking, blocking. He spun around and found her right up in his face. 

“Boo!” she said merrily. He scowled at her and she burst out laughing. 

He said, “Oh great, is the Bobby Drake Humiliation Festival still on?” 

“I’m sorry, honey,” she giggled and put her gloved hands on his hips. “And, honestly, nobody was trying to humiliate you. Being thrown is just part of the training.” 

“Are you dense?! This has been the best day of John’s life, blindsiding me and then getting applauded by everyone.” She clucked her tongue and he scowled deeper. “Well, spit it out, Rogue. You think I’m a dork, right?” 

She let out an exasperated breath and pulled him closer until his crotch was pressed against her stomach. “Bobby, I never said that! Why are you taking this so seriously?” 

He heard the door squeak open followed by the sound of giggles. Two 13-year-old girls had stuck their heads in and seen the mansion’s most famous couple getting all close and romantic. Bobby stepped back and Rogue’s hands fell to her side. 

“Girls, do you mind giving us some privacy?” The faces retreated with another giggle. Bobby dropped to a mat and started doing calisthenics. “John was out of line,” he said between gritted teeth as he made his way through 30 push-ups. “That wasn’t fair.” 

Rogue loomed over him. “Fair? I’m sorry, but this isn’t Scott’s combat class. This is actual combat. We are training to be X-Men. When we get out there and fight, no one’s going to be giving us marks for _style_ or… or blowing whistles if is someone fouls us!” 

Bobby sat up and hugged his legs, feeling completely misunderstood. “But John shouldn’t even be in this group! He’s just doing it to make me look bad!” 

“Mister, you can be pretty egocentric, you know?” She sat on the mat beside him. “Why shouldn’t John be here? Don’t you think he has things to fight for?” She put a hand up to his cheek and even through her glove, he could feel the faintest tingle of her power. He suddenly felt ashamed and turned his face away. John had always made fun of the X-Men, of all the training, but maybe he had changed. _Maybe it’s me who doesn’t want to fight,_ Bobby thought. 

Still, his wounded ego rebelled. “But he has to at least _act_ like we’re a team, Rogue!” he said miserably. 

“Listen, sugar,” she said quietly. “You have to stop being so sensitive. You should thank John for catchin’ you off guard. You told me about the night you fought at Turcott’s Clinic. Magneto wasn’t playing fair then, was he? And he wasn’t playing fair when he tied me up in the Statue of Liberty. I was supposed to die for his stupid plan.” 

Bobby turned back to her and saw her eyes glistening. “Honey, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to think about that.” He reached up to touch her face and she jerked back so he wouldn’t connect with her deadly skin. He lowered the useless hand again. 

She gave a little sniff. “No, I don’t mind. It happened to me and it was terrible, but that’s part of the reason I’m ready to fight. Before that, I never realized how strong I could be.” She wiped her eyes and looked up at him with determination. “And I don’t know what your problem is with John, but enough is enough. Everyone says you used to be best friends, that you put yourself on the line to get him into the school. And now, because of some stupid _boy_ fight, probably about who has a bigger cock-a-doodle-doo, you aren’t talking. Congratulations. Well, it ends today.” 

_Blindsided again!_ He got to his feet and started piling up the workout mats, letting each one smack down loudly on the next. “You don’t understand, Rogue! Drop it.” 

She shouted from behind him, “Bobby Drake, you are a stubborn fool!” He heard her running and turned too late to stop her. Suddenly he was hitting the ground again, this time tackled by his girlfriend. 

“Jesus Christ,” he screamed. “Why am I everyone’s fucking punching bag today?!” 

He tried to get up, but she pushed him back down, leaning all her weight on his shoulders. “Is it because John’s gay? Is that your problem? Are you _that_ immature?” 

His mouth hung open. “Gay? Why do you think he’s g-gay?” He heard the panicky edge in his voice. 

“Oh, please, Bobby,” she said with a laugh as she leaned on him, her long hair falling into his face. “Everybody knows. He told Jubilee months ago. I heard he’s even got a boyfriend in the City.” 

Bobby’s stomach dropped out from under him. And then he laughed. “Oh, come on, Rogue! If you believe every rumor that circulates in this place, you’re more naive than I thought!” 

Rogue narrowed her eyes at him and snapped: “Admit it, Bobby Drake. John being gay has you totally freaked. You probably think everyone’s wondering about _you_ since you were his best friend.” Bobby sputtered, trying to formulate some response, but she cut him off. “What is wrong with boys? You all think there’s such a thing a gay cooties!” 

Bobby looked away. _A boyfriend? It’s not possible!_ He decided, just as simple as that, not to believe it. Anytime Jubilee opened her mouth, a rumor was born. It was just better not to believe a word she said. Calm descended on him as Rogue sat up on his lap. He could feel the warmth growing in his groin. She laughed. “Mmm, this feels pretty good, big guy. Do I detect some, uh, movement in your position?” 

He smirked. “I’m a gentleman, Marie, I’m not admitting anything. Look, I promise I’ll give John a chance, okay? If he says he wants to be an X-Man, then maybe he does.” 

“There now, was that so, uh, hard?” She wiggled her butt on his lap again, laughing and blushing at her own unaccustomed crudeness. 

Then Bobby recognized the role he could play: he could be the man. He had the girl; he could afford to be cool, even play the joker. “Okay, but I’m sorry, babe, I’m not going to kiss him just to make you feel better.” 

“Really? Not even for the good of the X-Men?” Bobby gave a ferocious growl and flipped them over so he was on top. Rogue squealed with delight and said, “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” She put a hand through his curls. “Just be friendly to him, okay? I like him; he’s got a good heart under all that snark.” She kissed her gloved forefinger and touched it to his lips. “And you are my brave hero no matter what, and someday I’m going to give you a night you’ll never forget.” 

“Someday,” he echoed. He stood and offered her a hand. They left the gym with her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders. _Let the girls look now,_ Bobby thought. 

They decided to go outside and cool off in the last of the afternoon sun. Bobby had always liked the hours between classes and dinner when he could be alone, time to recover from a day of being social and public. But now, with extra practices and a girlfriend demanding more of his time, he felt a bit resentful. Then he remembered how many of those late afternoons had actually been spent with John, urgently exploring each other’s bodies. 

They wandered down the long, winding driveway, past trees showing the first of their fall colors, towards Graymalkin Lane. Bobby was surprised to find John sitting on a bench just inside the school’s ornate black gates. 

Rogue smiled with surprise, “What are you doing here?” 

John looked them over, his eyes registering the cozy arrangement of their limbs. The look ended at Bobby’s eyes which he held for a second. “Someone’s picking me up. I’m going for dinner in the city.” 

Bobby decided not to make anything of that. No way. But then he realized that John was kind of dressed up, at least for John — freshly showered, sparse moustache hairs shaved clean, hair slicked back, wearing the red sweater he had abandoned months ago, having declared it “too gay even for a boy band.” 

“You have permission to go out on a school night?” Bobby asked skeptically. 

“Sure,” John said vaguely, standing now and looking down the road through the bars of the fence. 

“Really!” Bobby said to his back, his anger mounting despite his efforts to control it. “Scott signed you a permission slip?” 

John turned back and scowled. “I’m sorry, I seemed to have missed the announcement that you were appointed hall monitor.” 

“Teammates, boys,” Rogue said, detaching herself from Bobby and going to stand by John, watching the road with him. “We’re the new X-Men, remember?” 

Bobby had to fight the urge to join them. On the one hand, he was insanely curious to know what — who— was coming; on the other hand, he really, really didn’t want to know. That was when he heard the sound of a high-performance engine coming down the road. He couldn’t help it; he ran to the gate and the three of them watched as a red 1969 Mustang convertible, chromed and detailed from polished grill to buffed tailpipe, pulled to a stop outside. In the driver’s seat, a man in his 20s; thick, golden brown hair blowing in the breeze. Leather driving gloves, a long leather coat and big shades that screamed style. Before Bobby could ask _who the hell…_ , John was already at the gate post, punching in the access code (acquired, no doubt, with the help of his nosy little buddy, Jones). Bobby and Rogue jumped back as the gate began sliding sideways. John ran through the gap and jumped into the passenger seat, grinning as he reached forward and turned on the sound system. Hard, cold dance music shook the air and, without a word, John and the man kissed. On the lips. Lingeringly. 

Bobby was stunned, unable to move or speak. If Rogue hadn’t grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the car, he might have stayed there, frozen as the statuary on the front lawn. 

“Hi,” she said in a voice that was a strange gumbo of polite and challenging. “I’m Rogue. Who might you be?” 

“Ahh, Sweet Marie, the girl from Mississippi, henh?” The man spoke with a weird accent. Kind of…European? Bobby wasn’t sure. The man slapped John on the arm. “’Ey, you don’t tell me how beautiful dis Rogue is, John-John.” He whistled in appreciation. “She ’as de eyes like de fire opal.” 

Rogue smirked, and Bobby thought she wasn’t altogether displeased by the compliment, no matter how cheesy the cheesy cheesoid’s cheesy line had been. Bobby sounded shockingly like his father as he shouted over the music, “Listen, whoever-you-are, John can’t just leave the school without permission. He can’t go with you.” 

The man cocked his head and smiled. He pulled off the shades and his eyes were glowing, red as lava. _He’s another mutant!_ “You’re Bobby, right?” he said. “John-John, ’e ’as tol’ me lots about you.” The man’s gaze ran up and down his body in frank appraisal, and Bobby found himself taking a step behind Rogue. The man laughed. “Don’t you worry, kids, Remy will ’ave your friend back ’ome safe and soun’ in a few _h_ ours!” 

John, for his part, coolly pulled a cigarette from a pack he’d fished from the glove compartment. With a click and scratch of his lighter, he lit up. “Don’t wait up, _kids!_ ” he said with a triumphant sneer as Remy threw the car into gear and squealed a big circle out onto the road, leaving tire marks in front of the gates. The sound of house music and laughter faded in the distance. 

Bobby’s face was hot. “Fuck,” he breathed. 

“Or something like that,” Rogue agreed. 

Scott was waiting for them on the front steps of the mansion, hands folded over his chest. “Where did John Allerdyce just go?” 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open. “How… how do you know about —?” 

“Any time the gate opens, the security system turns on the cameras and informs me.” 

Rogue let out a deep huffing breath. “Well, what were we supposed to do, Mr. Summers? We couldn’t exactly tie him up or nothin’.” 

Scott shook his head. “No, that’s true. But I hear you’re all teammates now.” He turned to look at Bobby. “Maybe part of being a team is reminding him of the consequences of his actions.” 

Bobby felt himself blushing. “But… he said he had permission!” 

Scott cocked his head eloquently. “And you believed him?” Bobby cringed. 

Rogue, in contrast, had not lost her composure. “We don’t know where he went,” she said. “Just out for dinner.” 

Scott shook his head and, as he turned and disappeared inside, Bobby heard him mutter, “With Remy LeBeau. Great.” 

Rogue sat heavily on the steps. “Shit. Poor John,” she said. 

Bobby was about to reply that “poor John” always had the fun while “poor Bobby” got yelled at, when his phone rang. John! Phoning to gloat, no doubt. “Hello?” 

“Bobby?” The familiar voice had dropped an octave since he last heard it and it took Bobby a second to react. 

“Ronny! Hey, man, what’s happening?” 

“I just… missed you, bro. Wanted to hear your voice.” His little brother actually sounded glad to be talking to him. 

Bobby sat down beside Rogue with a big grin on his face. “Mom says you went out for football this year. How’s that going?” he asked. 

“Great, great. Hey, listen. It’s about Mom and Dad. That’s why I’m phoning.” 

“They driving you crazy? I know how they can get.” He smiled at Rogue and she smiled back encouragingly, taking his hand in hers. Bobby Drake, Big Brother was back in action. “You have to remember that just because they’re grown ups, they’re still just humans.” 

“But you don’t understand, man!” Ronny replied, his voice rising. “They’re being total tools! I want to buy this Wii, right? I totally need it and they said if I want it, I have to earn the money.” 

Bobby’s smile faded a bit. “Well, that’s kind of how it works, Ronny.” 

“No! Remember when you wanted that snowboard? You told them it was, like, _so_ important to you and they totally got it for you! The best one!” 

Bobby had no answer for that. “Well, it was for my birthday, I guess, but…” 

“And they said that with you at school and the high tuition and stuff, they can’t afford to get me _everything_ I want. But I _told_ them! I just want this _one thing!_ ” 

Bobby removed his hand from Rogue’s and covered his eyes. “So, what, Ron? You want me to ask them for you?” 

“No point. They’re like this stone wall, you know? Maybe you could lend me the money. Or it could be like my birthday gift for the next three years or something!” 

“I don’t have the money,” Bobby said in a low voice. 

“Come on, don’t be like that. You’re supposed to be my big brother!” 

“I don’t have it!” Bobby shouted. “I don’t work, okay? I study and try to get good grades so I-I’ll have a future! If you want something that bad, you’ll just have to work for it.” The words sounded so pompous and stupid that he couldn’t believe he’d said them. 

“Okay! You don’t have to be such an asshole about it, Bobby!” 

“Don’t call me names, Ronny.” 

“I didn’t say you _were_ an asshole; I said you’re acting like… Never mind, just never mind! It’s always the same fucking story, isn’t it?” 

“What? What is?” 

“Come on, Bobby, you know! You get it all. You’re the golden boy! Anyone who fucking phones the house gets a full report.” Ronny’s voice arched up high in a scarily accurate parody of their mother’s sing-song. “‘Oh, yes, my Bobby is doing so well at his _private, oh so fancy PREP PRIVATE CRAP school!’_ ” 

Bobby felt a sharp pain move through him. He rose to his feet. “Ronny…” 

“‘What? Ronny? Who’s that? Oh you mean the _other_ one! I’m not sure what _he’s_ up to. I’m sure he’s probably _fine!_ ’” 

Bobby moved down the steps. He couldn’t control his voice, couldn’t make himself stop yelling. “Why are you such a little prick?! You’ve treated me like shit for the past two years! What did I do to you?” 

“You’re just like them! If I vanished off the face of the earth, you wouldn’t notice till my report card came back blank!” 

“Fuck you, it’s not true! You’re my brother, I-I care about what happens —” 

“NO! You just… just have your little private school circle jerk bullshit life! You’re no use to me, man! I don’t need you!” Ronny hung up. 

Bobby folded his phone and put it carefully back in his pocket. His hand was shaking. He squinted up at the sun which was just disappearing behind the trees. He thought he could almost feel the chill in the air. 

“He’s 14, right?” Marie asked, standing up to put an arm around his waist. “Fourteen-year-old boys should all be put in quarantine for a few years.” 

“Whatever,” Bobby mumbled. “I’m pretty sure they shouldn’t be abandoned.” 

 

*** 

 

Jean sat marking papers at her desk in the biology lab, slowly becoming aware of an annoying sound. Her concentration broken, she looked for the source and found that she herself was tapping her pen nervously on the desktop. “Looks like you’re getting on your own nerves, there, Jean,” she said out loud, darkly amused. “You and you are heading straight for divorce if you can’t learn to live together.” She put the pen down and stretched. She had a tendency to hunch forward as she worked, and lately it had been causing cricks in her neck. _Getting old already._

She thought about the nature of identity; how we are all more than one person. Before her life was done, she will have lived as child, lover, wife, teacher, X-Man… Somehow, she mused, humans must reconcile this multiplicity into one coherent self. These ideas weren’t new, but they had taken on a special resonance for her, though she couldn’t say why. Lately, she had felt like someone was looking over her shoulder, and she had the horrific sense that if she turned and caught the spy, it would have her face. 

She recalled a strange moment from earlier in the afternoon when she was running a test on herself with the new holographic encephalography imager. She had wanted to see if she could find the source of her losses of control. Viewing the results in real time, all had seemed normal. But then her attention had strayed for a second, and in that second something had changed. She saw the bizarre wave patterns only in her peripheral vision and ever so briefly, but when she turned her attention back to the display, everything was normal again. She ran a playback of the session, but the anomaly was not recorded. “Come on,” she had murmured, like trying to coax a shy cat from behind the couch, “I know you’re there; stop hiding.” And even though the phenomenon remained aloof, she knew what she had seen — and it had been beautiful. 

“Dr. Grey?” came a voice from the door. 

She turned and smiled. “Hello, Doug, come in. How’s your paper going?” 

His eyes shone with excitement as he came and stood next to her, gesticulating as he talked. “Excellent! I’ve studied the word ‘danger’ in 193 living and dead languages to see if the phonemes show any patterns. I want to see if the sounds are themselves emotionally loaded. Do they correlate to other words that represent stressors?” 

She found herself smiling up at him, and after a few seconds, she reached out and spontaneously hugged his small frame. “I am so proud of you, Doug. You have a wonderful power and you’re using it so intelligently!” She felt him go a bit rigid. Fifteen-year-olds weren’t exactly the biggest teddy bears in the world, but she didn’t want to let go. It was if the world was suddenly too big and dangerous for someone as vulnerable as Doug. She felt a fierce desire to protect him from predators. 

“Uh, thanks, Dr. Grey,” he said with obvious embarrassment. He pulled away suddenly. “Hi, Mr. Summers!” She looked up to see Scott leaning in the doorway, and she could see he was repressing a smile. 

She looked up at Doug who was blushing hotly. “Well, keep up the good work,” she told him. “I look forward to reading your paper.” The boy made small noises of acknowledgement and pushed past Scott out of the room. Jean was a bit embarrassed herself. “I don’t know what’s with me these days. I’ve become so sentimental.” 

Scott came in and sat on her desk in front of her, cupping her chin and bending to kiss her softly on the lips. 

“How’s your day going?” she asked him. 

“John Allerdyce just left with Remy LeBeau,” he said in what might be best described as a classic deadpan. 

“What?! How does he even know Gambit? And left for where?” Remy LeBeau — codename: Gambit — had been a classmate of theirs for a few months before announcing that he was better off without Charles Xavier’s help. She had felt the same affection for Remy that she did for John. They had good hearts despite the poor choices they always seemed to make. And that made her think about Logan. 

“I have no idea where they met,” Scott said. “Last I heard, Gambit’s become a jewel thief.” 

Jean put her head in her hands. “Oh, John…” She look up at Scott. “What are you going to do when he comes back?” 

Scott ran his fingers gently through her hair. “I have no fucking clue. Every time I want to discipline that boy, I feel like Charles is holding me back. But the Professor won’t deal with him either, so John ends up getting away with whatever he wants.” 

“Charles feels like he failed the boy.” 

“Well, we’re not doing him any favors by letting him turn into a delinquent.” 

Jean had to laugh. “Oh, Scott, for someone born in the 80s, you sound so 1950s. Look, John is still a good student. He works hard on his assignments.” 

“There’s more to a student’s responsibilities around here than just grades,” he answered gruffly, but then he abruptly smiled at her. “You’re not sentimental, you know. You’re becoming maternal. You care about all these kids. You’re like a fierce mother ready to protect her young. One day, I want you to be the fierce mother of our kids.” 

His words touched her profoundly, but also made her feel guilty. X-Man, teacher, scientist… Maybe there wasn’t room for ‘mother’ alongside all the other entities crowding her body. Would Scott still want her if she didn’t want a child? 

She stood up and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her in return and for a moment there was peace in her soul. But just for a moment. From deep inside her, a voice — like an echo of an echo — called across a great void: 

_Akhsîfni divrr’rBrekhti Dràvan! The fire, the fire, the blood on the grass. Rise again, the dead, rise from the chasm… Let loose! Let loose!_

Looking over Scott’s shoulder, her eyes glowed red and gold, a star straining to burst free. 


	28. Cracks in the Dam (X2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Events in this and following three chapters take place around events in the second X-Men movie, “X2: X-Men United.”

Early in November, early in the morning, Rogue’s gloved knuckles knocked on the door, muffled but distinct. When no one answered, she opened it carefully and stuck her head in. Bobby was behind her, peering over her shoulder into the darkness. “John?” she hissed. 

She heard Flea’s raspy, drowsy voice. “Allerdyce, wake up! Rogue wants you.” 

John’s voice was as thick as syrup, and a bitter syrup at that. “Tell her I’m sleeping. That’s why the lights are off.” 

She felt Bobby fidgeting behind her and spoke quickly before he could say something that wouldn’t help the situation. “Come on, John, we have practice. Peter should have got you up.” 

“He tried. It’s Saturday morning! And I was working till four on my history paper. Tell Jubilee we can do it later, for fuck’s sake.” 

Bobby’s voice was annoyed, too loud and right in her ear. “Field trip, John, remember?! We have to hold practice early because we’re going on a field trip. Do we need to get you a PDA?” 

“No, you need to get me a lock on my door to keep annoying people out. I need to _sleep!”_

“Me, too,” Flea mumbled. 

Now Bobby and John both had their backs up and Rogue realized there was no way she’d succeed. “Okay, John, you sleep. It’s just one practice. We’ll miss you.” The last had sounded too sugary — never a good approach with Pyro. _Oh well._ She shut the door and walked to the gym with a fuming Bobby, trying to seem upbeat so he’d calm down. 

She still didn’t understand. Bobby could be patient with almost anyone except John. Now he was practically grinding his teeth. “Seriously, does he have any sense of responsibility? When you make a commitment, you make a —” 

She cut him off. “I know, I know, but it’s only one practice. We’re all sweating mid-terms and papers now. I didn’t want to wake up either.” 

“But you got up anyway!” 

“Bobby, it’s not your problem. Why do you take everything John does so to heart? It’s a waste of energy.” 

Rogue could not stand feuds. She had watched her family cut in two because of her father’s escalating battles with his brother. They battled over religion, politics and the family business, but eventually they seemed to fight out of habit. In addition to a lot of ridiculous Thanksgivings and Christmases where more bitter words were chewed than turkey, their feud had meant the loss of her best friend and cousin, Ellen-May. Their friendship had been burned in the same fire as the old photographs her father had ripped from the family albums. If only the girls had been a little older, they could have found ways to secretly remain in contact; but they were only 10 years old and dependent on car rides and permissions. Her cousin had no computer and Marie no cell phone. There was no solution. A stupid boy feud had cut out a piece of her heart, and she wasn’t going to let it happen again in her new home. 

And so, at her insistence, John had become the third wheel in her relationship with Bobby. If she and her boyfriend were going somewhere, she made sure John joined them. At first, it had been both artificial and wearying, and she felt like she had two badly socialized hounds on short leashes, tugging in opposite directions. She still didn’t know what had caused their rift, but little by little, they came to tolerate each other. Eventually, the three were a stable little unit, though if she left them alone too long, the hair would rise on their backs and they’d start snapping and growling all over again. 

“Aren’t you being a bit of a martyr, Rogue?” Jubilee asked her after practice that morning, still panting from the obstacle course she had led them through. The ‘New X-Men’ were working hard under her direction, even beginning to function as something of a team. To the younger students, they were the epitome of infinite, unassailable coolness. “I mean, it’s awesome that you got Bobby and John speaking again, but you’re allowed to be alone with your boyfriend sometimes.” 

Rogue wiped her sweaty brow with a towel. “We’re alone plenty, Jubes! We go for walks and… other things I won’t mention, thank you. But those boys need each other and I want them to realize it.” She didn’t know what to make of the way Jubilee stared at her in response, tongue pushing her cheek out. 

Kitty, who had, as usual, watched the practice from the bleachers, wandered down to them, advanced computational theory text tucked under her arm. “You looked good today, guys. But Rogue, you don’t come out of your tuck fast enough. And Jubilee, you keep leaving your left flank open.” 

Rogue narrowed her eyes in annoyance. “6.4 from the Russian judge,” she mumbled. 

Kitty just threw her a satisfied smile. “Better get showered; buses leave for the museum in 45 minutes,” she reminded them and walked away. 

A stray lock of hair had fallen into Rogue’s face and she blew a huffing breath at it. “That girl can sometimes be a bit irritatin’” 

Jubilee nodded. “Yeah, too bad she’s right about you and your tuck.” 

“Hmphh, and about your left flank, suga’!” 

As she showered, Rogue considered her desire to include John in her’s and Bobby’s life. It was more than just altruism. She liked having John around. Not that Bobby wasn’t everything she could want in a boyfriend. He was cute, courteous, comic, considerate; but he could be, and she regretted the pun, a bit icy. There were a lot of hidden places inside him she just wasn’t allowed to see. He seemed to find some way to be offended in even the most innocent situations. It was a bit exhausting sometimes. 

John, on the other hand, had a way of cutting through bullshit that she found a huge relief. She envied his sharp wit and the way he didn’t care what people thought of him. Where Bobby was obsessively careful with his image — how many hours could one boy spend grooming his curls? — John almost dared people to judge him. To her quiet, Southern good-girl upbringing, this was thrilling to be around. 

It was 10 a.m. and the weather was unusually balmy for November as the students left Westchester in two school buses, headed for Manhattan. The ride was predictable pleasant chaos. As usual, the New X-Men found themselves surrounded by their fans. Bobby had let himself be led forward by his new roommate — Kevin Tran, animal psychic, age 13 — who _needed_ to show him the comic books he’d brought along. Rogue took the opportunity to cross the aisle and sit with John. 

“John!” called Gwynn Cully, a 12 year-old girl with a highly imperfect ability to transmute elements. 

“You’re sitting right in front of me, nutball,” John shot back. “You don’t need to shout.” 

“Sorry. Can you do some fire tricks?!” she asked, and other kids nodded their agreement with this plan. 

John made a big show of looking bored, but then he peered towards the front of the bus to see if the teachers were watching and, seeing that the coast was clear, crouched down conspiratorially in his seat, whipping out his lighter. Maybe it was because he had ready audiences around him every day, but John had been working hard on his fire control, perfecting little stunts that could be hilarious or dazzling. The results of that control were starting to show up in his combat training, too. Rogue played the foil to his bad boy and rolled her eyes, but in reality, she enjoyed it when he acted the showman. 

“Whoa, ho!” he narrated in a whisper as little fireballs jumped through little fire hoops. Rogue enjoyed the performance as much as the kids, even though she missed half of it while she played lookout. She noticed Kevin twisting around to look back in their direction, as if he suddenly wished he had stayed with John and the “cool” kids instead of moving forward with Bobby. She was startled as a fireball appeared in front of her face, buzzing like a little fly. She swatted at it in mock irritation, turning to see John grinning at her. Then the fireball flew a circle around her head before flying up to the ceiling and bursting like a mini-nova. 

Rogue cried out in surprise, and from the front of the bus came the censorious voice of Mr. Summers. “John, no powers while we’re away from the school! Don’t make me remind you again.” Rogue was sure she felt more chastened than John, especially when she caught Bobby glaring back their way, annoyed and disappointed. _Well, shit! It’s not my fault!_ she thought. John, on the other hand, was snickering about the incident with his pint-sized audience, 

The Museum of Natural History had recently updated and expanded some of its exhibit halls, and it was packed with visitors. Rogue knew she should be more interested in the displays, but the crowds were annoying and, furthermore, she was distracted by the growling of her belly. 

John gave her a quizzical look. “Hey, was that your stomach or the stuffed hyena in the diorama?” 

“Very funny. Hey Bobby,” she hissed and he left the group of kids he was standing with to join her and John. “Let’s go to the cafeteria. I’m starving!” 

“I told you not to skip breakfast,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks, _Dad,_ ” she said and John snickered. “I wasn’t hungry then, but now I am. Please?” 

Bobby looked towards the teachers guiltily. “Okay. Just for a few minutes, right?” He pulled the floor plan from his pocket and studied it carefully. “Cafeteria’s on the ground floor. Follow me.” 

With some French fries and an apple in her, she started to feel better. John had, surprisingly, offered to buy Bobby an ice cream bar, and that gesture seemed to make them all relax. 

Bobby licked the last of the chocolate from his lips and asked her, “You having a good time?” 

“Yeah, I guess. I remember field trips when I was a little kid. It didn’t matter where we were going, just that we were escaping from the classroom for a day! I was always so excited the night before, I could hardly fall asleep.” 

Bobby wiped his mouth and then wrapped the wooden stick from his ice cream carefully in the napkin. “My Grandpa Stewart used to take me and Ronny to the Museum of Science in Boston. We went so many times, I knew the whole place by heart.” 

John snorted, “What, the old man couldn’t think of anywhere else to take you?” 

“No, I always begged to go there. And Ronny was happy to go anywhere I went.” Bobby went quiet for a second and she knew he was thinking about the angry distance that had grown between the brothers. Then she watched him resolutely put his Bobby smile back in place and continue. “I remember I would go up to people and explain the exhibits and answer their questions. Sometimes they asked me if I worked for the museum, which was funny since I was like eleven.” 

John slumped in his chair, stretching his legs under the table, where they bumped Rogue’s feet. “My favorite place to go with my mom was the Castle.” 

“There’s a castle in Syracuse?” she asked, amused. 

“No, that’s just what they called it. It was a big mansion run by this puppet theatre. They had shows there every weekend and also this amazing workshop full of puppets and fake fur and googly eyes and shit. I don’t know where mom was — I think she had to work Saturdays — but sometimes she would drop me off at the Castle, and I would sit there all day making puppets. I remember this one was like a Godzilla but with pink spikes coming out of its head. Me and these other kids made a city out of cardboard for him to destroy. I can’t remember it all, but I know I was happy there.” 

Rogue looked over at Bobby who was watching John intently, as if the story meant more to him than she could understand. Just for a second she felt jealous. Bobby seemed more interested in this dumb puppet story than anything she had ever told him about her life. She was surprised at this moment of jealousy. Hadn’t she wanted to bring the boys together? But maybe Jubilee had a point: Rogue didn’t have to be a martyr. 

“You still have the Godzilla puppet?” Bobby asked John. 

“Heh, probably mom does in a box somewhere. Or else fuckface made her throw it out along with everything else she ever cared about.” 

“Maybe you’ll go back one day and look for it,” Rogue said, and the boys both turned to her as if they had forgotten she was there. 

John snorted. “If I ever go back there, It’ll be to deliver a little surprise to my dear Step-Dad.” He flipped out his lighter and struck a flame. The three of them stared into its depths, hypnotized by the bright abyss of John’s hatred. 

“What if your mom’s not with him anymore?” Bobby asked. 

“Nah, she’s weak. She’ll never leave, no matter what he does to her. No matter what he did to me.” The flame danced, graceful and hungry, like a beautiful tiger, curling to strike. “Yeah, I’ll just knock on the door. Hi, remember me? Nah, not ‘John.’ I have a new name now…” 

“Hey, buddy, you got a light?” came a voice behind them. Rogue turned and saw a teen with dark curly hair holding out a cigarette. 

 

*** 

 

The X-Men were seated or standing around the library on the second floor of the mansion. Scott would have preferred to be in the sub-basement’s tactical room, but the “poignant light of the setting sun” had prompted Charles to choose this space. 

_Fine,_ Scott thought. _I can cope_. But it was just one more distraction on a day that needed singularity of purpose. As they debriefed on the Presidential attack and made plans to find the mutant attacker, he had trouble keeping his thoughts away from Jean and the way her powers seemed to be escaping her control. Her sudden power surge at the museum had been the first time she’d lost it in public. How long would it be before a serious accident happened, or until she exposed them? Despite his desire to respect her privacy, the time had come to talk to Charles about what was happening. 

_*Scott, I’m fine,*_ came the voice in his head, and he felt like he’d been caught jerking off at his computer again. 

_*Let’s just focus on the meeting, Jean,*_ he answered her and tightened the barriers around his thoughts. 

“I’ve been trying to track him with Cerebro,” Charles was saying, “but his movements are inexplicably erratic. When I have more exact co-ordinates, Storm, Jean, I’ll need you to take the jet and try and pick him up. Scott, stay with me a minute.” 

“Yes, sir,” he answered. Jean passed close to him as she followed Ororo out of the room, her fingertips dangling with an invitation to touch. But he didn’t reach out. The moment she was gone, he regretted the act of peevishness. 

When they were alone, Scott said, “Do you think we should cancel your meeting with Magneto? There’s a lot to do today without another field trip.” 

Charles shook his head. “No, the prison authorities said he put in a special request to see me. Even if he’s not behind the attacks, he may have learned something from his broadcaster in the Brotherhood. We’ll leave at five as planned.” 

Scott nodded as if still considering the matter. In fact, he was bracing himself to broach the subject of Jean’s powers. He remembered another loose end the day had unraveled and decided he’d warm up on that topic. “I hate to bring up school business when we’re dealing with a crisis, but we should discuss what we’re going to do about John Allerdyce. His behavior is becoming impossible. You saw what happened at the museum today. He skips classes whenever he feels like it, breaks curfew… Twice this term, he’s gone truant — twice that I _know_ of, anyway. And you’ve heard who he’s spending his time with.” 

Xavier looked away, his face vanishing into shadow. “The whole situation has me very discouraged. And his involvement with Gambit is not the kind of extra-curricular activity we’re suggesting for our students.” 

Scott laughed grimly. “‘A Young Mutant’s Guide to Jewel Theft.’” He sat down beside Xavier. “You’re making my argument for me, Charles. I know John’s been your special student, but I need you to give me back my authority here.” 

“Yes, I understand. I waited to see if he wished to resume his writing tutorials, but judging by the scorn he heaps on literature in general in my English seminars, his priorities have changed. I think his new infatuation with revolutionary thought is driven by a terrible sense of betrayal. I fear the choices he might make.” 

“Perhaps we need to put some limits on him now. If he’s testing us, let’s show him we care enough to instill some discipline.” 

“Perhaps you’re right. If only I could have been more sensitive to… Never mind. We must deal with where he is now. You have my permission to handle the situation as you see fit. Now I must get down to Cerebro and track our fugitive mutant.” Sudden comprehension crossed Xavier’s face and he put a hand on Scott’s arm. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted. I think there’s something else you want to say to me.” 

Scott wasn’t surprised by the comment. Telepaths, even when they weren’t actively reading minds, could be eerily sensitive. _No turning back,_ he thought. “This is difficult, Charles. What it is… I’m worried about Jean.” Charles nodded seriously, but just as Scott steadied himself to continue, he heard the noise of an engine. It was a familiar sound because he had built this particular machine from the ground up. His stolen masterpiece was returning. “Shit!” he spat out. “Why today of all days?!” 

He could see that Xavier had already made mental contact with the new arrival, and try as he might, his mentor couldn’t conceal his pleasure. “Please, Scott. He’s a good man and he fought bravely as a member of your team.” 

“No! He fought, but he doesn’t know the meaning of teamwork. In my book, that makes him more of a liability than an asset.” He turned around and headed for the door. What was he going to do? Throw Logan out? He couldn’t; it was Xavier’s house and Xavier wanted him here, apparently. 

“Scott, what is it you wanted to say about Jean?” 

_Jean! Where is she?_ he asked himself, seeing more red than usual. _If Logan goes near her, I’ll kill him!_ He hurried from the room. 

“Keep your cool, Scott,” he heard Charles call after him. 

 

When the students and staff of the Institute returned from the field trip, John hadn’t followed the crowd inside. He slipped off the bus and hid behind the topiary walls of a secluded side garden, making sure he was out of sight before Cyclops exited from the other bus. With all the shit going down in Washington, he was hoping that his ill-advised stunt in the museum’s cafeteria would be forgotten. Maybe he just needed to keep a low profile for the weekend. He sat down on a stone bench, the seat supported by carved cherubs, to consider what had happened. Rogue and Bobby had been at him for most of the trip home, asking why he couldn’t have just given the kid a light, avoided the confrontation. 

Well, he had his answers. First of all, he didn’t owe anything to anyone who hadn’t earned it. Second and more importantly, all strangers were potential enemies. In the first minute, you set the tone for the whole relationship. Show any weakness, you mark yourself as a target. He had learned that fast enough on the streets and in Keever’s gang. Maybe these old survival techniques didn’t actually make a lot of sense now that he was a student at Xavier’s, but he wasn’t in the mood for regrets. Besides, he wasn’t going to be at the school forever; maybe he wouldn’t even graduate. Life, he knew, was unpredictable. Losing his street smarts would be a bad plan. 

Considering all the shitty places he might be at the moment, the little garden was a miracle of peace. He had been there the better part of an hour when a sleek, well-fed rat ran into the garden and stood up on its hind legs in front of him, whiskers twitching. 

“Little hint,” John told the rat. “When someone is hiding, maybe they don’t want to be found.” The rat scratched his ear, turned and ran out of the garden. John looked towards the gap in the hedge and shortly, as expected, Kevin Tran walked in, the rat now balanced on his shoulder. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your sidekick to the museum, Tran.” 

Kevin came and stood beside him, scratching his shiny black head the same way the rat had scratched his ear. “Mr. Summers said I had to leave Xeric at home. But she _hates_ being locked in her cage.” 

“I don’t blame her,” John replied. 

“He was trying to find you when we got back. Mr. Summers, I mean. He looked really mad.” 

“Where is he now?” 

“The X-Men and the Professor went into the library. I guess they’re figuring out how to go after the assassin.” John picked up a small rock and tossed it over the top of the hedge. Kevin picked up a rock of his own and sent it flying in the same direction. The rat on his shoulder balanced admirably through the maneuver. “Do you think the government will arrest all the mutants?” the boy asked. 

“What? No!” 

“Maybe they’ll come here and round us up!” 

John was tired. The idea of climbing into his bed was beginning to appeal. “No, look, you’re safe here. No one knows about the school. And your teachers are super heroes, for fuck’s sake. They won’t let anything happen.” Kevin nodded, though he didn’t look convinced. “Hey,” John said. “I got to get inside. Where’s Summers now?” 

“Hold on…” Kevin answered, getting that distant psychic look on his face like Xavier and Dr. Grey got. “There’s a sparrow on the ledge of the library. Let me just get into her eyes.” The boy grew very still and his mouth dropped open. He wavered a bit on unsteady legs and John put a steadying hand on his back until he returned to himself. “Yeah, he’s still in there with the Professor.” 

“Cool, let’s go.” 

They ran quickly across the front lawn like spies, darting from tree to tree, along the hedgerows and around the circular driveway. Kevin followed him step-for-step like John was the master ninja and he was the disciple. 

They stopped in a small grove of ash trees to consider the final run for the front door. “Are you going to get kicked out of school?” Kevin whispered, reaching into his windbreaker to extract his rat who he’d put inside for safekeeping 

John’s stomach contracted. “No. Why? Summers say anything like that?” 

“No, just some of the kids said…” He trailed off. “If you run away, can I go with you?” 

John’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about? I’m not running away, knucklehead!” 

“Yeah, I heard you tell Rogue that if they keep bugging you, maybe you’d just pack your things and fuck off!” 

John slapped his forehead. “Jesus Christ, don’t start listening to everything I say. I’m full of shit half the time.” Kevin’s brow furrowed at that and John laughed. “Besides, kid, where do you think we would go?” 

“Anywhere! We were both streetwise, right? We know how to survive.” 

“You were on the street for maybe ten minutes before Storm and Bobby picked you up. Don’t make yourself out to be the Artful Dodger. What’s with you, all of a sudden? You’re doing great here! Bobby told everyone how proud he is. You don’t want to go and disappoint Iceman, do you?” 

“No, but… Bobby’s not, you know, tough like you. You’re a survivor. You and me… we could kick ass!” 

“Stop it,” John said sharply, a dangerous anger rising in him. He couldn’t listen to this for another minute. “Just stop it, Tran.” He turned and hissed at the kid with a ferocity that surprised him. “You do not know me, okay? You don’t know what happened to me; what I had to do to survive.” 

“But you did survive!” 

“And you don’t know the fucking cost, all right?!” John had forgotten all about stealth. “Don’t you fuck up! You… you want a role model? Be like Bobby. Learn how to make friends and be a good student. The only lesson to learn from me is, play with matches, you get burned.” 

Kevin gave him a resentful glare. “Whatever. Next time I’ll leave you the fuck alone.” He turned and ran back the across the lawn the way they had come. _Shit,_ John thought. _Sorry, kid, but I don’t need you hanging on my neck. I’ve got enough troubles._

He looked around to see if the coast was clear and then ran across the driveway to the front steps. The library was in the back, so if he hurried, he’d make it to his room without being seen. He reached for the doorknob and then pulled his hand away, as if it the metal might be electrified, or jinxed. Something felt different. Something important was slipping through his fingers. _Get it together,_ he told himself, cursing his paranoia. _This is your home. You made a place for_ _yourself here. You’re going to be an X-Man._ Still, he hesitated to enter, and that’s when he heard the sound of the motorcycle pulling up behind him. 

The man was as hot as ever, stepping off the bike, squatting a bit to adjust himself in his tight jeans. He turned and caught John staring. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, gruffly but without any real threat as he walked up the steps. “I hope you’re not gonna offer me head again.” 

John smirked, all his worries vanishing in the man’s thrilling presence. “Nah, I’ve been servicing the varsity football squad all day. I’m worn out.” 

Logan shook his head and laughed. “Damn, kid, you must make life interesting at Chuck’s little prep school.” He opened both sides of the double front door and marched in like he owned the place. John was about to follow when he heard Rogue’s voice inside. He hid himself behind the open door to listen. She only had to say two words for John to know she was still crushing on Logan. Not that he could blame her. He imagined running his hands over that furry torso as the man sweated and grunted above him. _Fuck! Drake’s there, too!_ He had to stick his head around the corner and take a peek. Bobby was totally pissing a territory ring around Rogue. Was he kidding? Battling for mating rights with the Wolverine? Could even Rogue take him seriously? 

John wanted to sneak in and up the stairs without being seen, but first Ms. Monroe appeared and then Dr. Grey, still flirting with Logan as if six months hadn’t gone by. John would have loved to see her dump Summers for the wild man. He could live vicariously through that. Hell, he knew she had a wild side; he’d seen it back in May — a dark and scary half that was the polar opposite of her usual science geek. Yeah, _that_ Jean could fuck the Wolverine in half. 

“Find what you were looking for, Logan?” said an all-too-familiar voice. John ducked behind the door again. 

Logan answered Summers with cold bravado. “More or less.” Territorial pissing was clearly the theme of the day. 

Jean said, “I’ll see you boys. Later.” 

Summers mumbled something to her and she replied, “You, too.” She traded goodbyes with Logan and then she was gone. Would the two men get into it? John couldn’t help it; he ducked low to the ground and peeked around the door again. 

“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” Logan asked and John could practically smell the testosterone in the air. “Your bike needs gas.” He tossed the keys at Summers. _Nice_. 

John knew Summers was holding himself in check, but he still threw back the keys with force. “Then fill her up.” Summers’s head shifted. “Mr. Allerdyce? Is that you on the floor?” 

_Shit!_

John stood up slowly, looking around at the ground as if he’d dropped something. “Oh, hey, Mr. Summers. What’s happening?” Logan took the opportunity to leave, giving John a smile that said _You’re busted, kid_ as he passed. 

John could still see the anger stiffening Summers’s face as he told him, “My office. Five minutes.” 

John cursed his heart for beating fast, his armpits for their rank fear sweat as he waited outside the office. He could hear Summers on the phone. “Yes, I can hold, but only for a minute.” John sat on one of the chairs outside the door, but when it scraped and echoed in the high-ceilinged hallway, Summers called out. “Is that you, Mr. Allerdyce? Come in and sit down.” 

John sauntered into the room like the whole meeting was his idea. Part of his brain warned him to act more humble, but it wasn’t a part of his brain he cared to listen to. He slumped down in a chair upholstered in burgundy leather and waited, making a game of writing Summers’s speech in his head before he heard it: “There’s more to school than just your studies, blah blah.” Or he might say: “The rules are not written for everyone except you, blah blah.” And maybe a bit of: “Believe it or not, we worry about you, St. John and when you just take off without permission blah blah…” 

The Assistant Headmaster was seated behind the desk, going over some document while he talked on the phone. “Yes, hello. I’m phoning about an item on our credit card bill. The vendor is one ‘Janus Dog Node,’ and the charge is for $25,000. Yes, 25,000 even. Now let me make it clear that I do not know this vendor, nor have we made any purchases that…” He stopped and looked more closely at the document. “Oh, you’re right. Yes, it is a credit. I see that now. That… makes no sense, either. No, there’s no contact information. Thank you, yes, I would appreciate it if you looked into this matter and got back to me. No, Monday will be fine.” He hung up, staring at the paper as if demanding it explain itself. 

The silence was bugging John, so he broke it. “Not the worst kind of problem to have, is it?” he said. “Someone just gave you $25,000? I’d leave well enough alone.” 

Scott put down the statement and smoothed it against the desk with both hands before raising his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, John. It’s always a problem when things don’t follow logical patterns. There are rules in this world, and understanding them can mean the difference between a life of chaos and one of progress.” 

_Ooh, segue trap! You want to play rhetoric games, Cyclops? I can play rhetoric games._ “Right, you have to understand them. But if they’re someone else’s rules, maybe you need to understand them so you can get around them.” John was suddenly enjoying himself. Maybe this would even be fun. 

Summers rose from his chair and walked around the desk to John’s side. He perched himself on the edge, staring down at John. “I’m starting to think you don’t even want to be at this school.” 

The fun ended abruptly. Silence hung for a second before John sat up from his slump and said, “What?” 

As he had in foyer, he could see Summers’s carefully controlled anger. It was a dog the man held tight on a leash, and you knew that it was just itching to break free and sink its teeth into something. “We have given you a home here, opportunities to study and grow and, frankly, your behavior mocks our efforts.” 

“My behavior?” John asked, tilting his head in consternation. “Which behavior is that? The 86 I got on my calculus quiz? The 92 I got on my history paper? Maybe it’s the way I’ve been practicing my power control exercises every day.” His voice had begun to rise. Summers responded by lowering his, tightening the leash. 

“You think that since you understand our rules, you can get around them. You’re mistaken.” John mentally gave the teacher a point for using his words against him. “Where do you think that attitude is going to take you?” 

“Uh, I dunno, college scholarship? Skid Row? Life’s full of surprises.” 

“I am so sick of your mouth, Allerdyce.” 

The gloves were off, and that was fine with John. _You hate me, man? I hate you double._ John gripped the arms of his chair. His impulse was to jump up, toss it to the ground, storm out. But that’s what Summers wanted: an excuse to expel him. John relaxed his hands. New game, new rules. “You want to know where I’m going, Mr. Summers? I’m going to graduate with honors, something no one would have ever thought possible. And then I’m going to be an X-Man.” 

The teacher raised his eyebrows. “Really? That _would_ be a surprise.” 

John’s fist clenched, but he wouldn’t be goaded. Not by this dweeb in tweed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m working my ass off in Jubilee’s practices.” 

“You ever miss them? This morning for instance?” 

The words were a knife in his chest. “What the fuck! Jubilee hands in attendance sheets to you now?!” 

“As a matter of fact, yes. That was one of the conditions we imposed when she started her practices.” 

“She should have told us…” John said through gritted teeth. He had lost his composure; lost the game. 

Scott stood and moved behind his desk, opening a file in which John saw a snapshot of himself from the day he arrived. A feral beast, skinny, eyes full of mistrust. Unlike John, Scott was fully in control of himself, his eyes inscrutable behind his glasses. “Here’s what I see when I look at you, St. John. I see a loner. Sure, you’re a smart kid, but you don’t know the meaning of teamwork. We go to the museum as a group, but you have to make it your own show. While we’re there, a national incident occurs that endangers us all. What are you doing while this is happening? Lighting a kid on fire in the cafeteria. What does that tell you about your ability to be team player?” 

John felt his throat close up. He choked out: “That’s not fair. I didn’t know about the President…” 

Scott folded his hands on the desk. “An X-Man?! You are not ready for that kind of responsibility. How could your teammates count on you? If I have a say in the matter — and I most certainly do — you will not be a member of my team next year.” 

John was almost blind with hatred; his hand itched to reach for his lighter. Obscenities of Rococo-ostentation coalesced on his tongue. “Are we finished… _sir_?” he asked. 

“Not yet.” Summers looked down into his file again. “You have been absent without permission three times in the last six weeks. Today you endangered us all. While I don’t think it would be unfair to expel you from the school for that alone, I also worry that you would be a serious danger to yourself outside this institution. Therefore, I have decided to punish you with grounding. You will remain on the school property, even on weekends, and you will not participate in field trips. The duration of the punishment will be one month.” 

John sat perfectly still. He looked across at the teacher. “You know, I realized you were a fascist asshole the first time I saw you.” Summers’s face didn’t change, so John dug himself in deeper. “Bet you wish it was Logan instead of me you were spanking.” 

Did the man’s lip twitch? A vein rise on his forehead? “Two months,” Summers replied tightly. 

They stared at each other in silence, and John hated the void of Summers’s dark glasses, hated the way there was nowhere to focus his fury. He imagined pulling the glasses off the man and watching him crawl around, eyes tightly shut, not knowing when and from where Pyro would strike. 

“If there are any more violations of the rules during that time,” Summers continued, “we may be forced to conclude that you do not belong here at our school.” 

“Are we finished _now_?” John asked as casually as he could, though his voice that had begun to quaver. 

“Yes, you’re dismissed.” 

John left the room and walked up the stairs like a zombie. His bed was calling him. He would crawl in and pull the covers over his head. He would stay there until tomorrow and he wouldn’t think about anything. 

The final insult just made him sleepier: Neal, standing on the second floor landing, telling Gwynn and a few other kids who used to think John was the man, “Allerdyce just had another long meeting with Mr. Summers. Are you becoming the best of friends now, John? Are you going to spend your evenings cleaning the toilet in his bathroom?” John noticed that Kevin was there, too, staring at him with dark, accusation. 

Was it cool how he ignored Neal and just trudged up the stairs, step by weary step? Did that impress the kids? Because it was the best he could do. 

It was dark when he woke up. He had slept right through dinner. Why hadn’t Peter got him up? Or Flea? He realized that the news of his latest run-in with authority would have spread. Maybe all the good little gifted youngsters were going to shun him. _Fine, fuck you all. I got lots of friends._

He felt his way over to Peter’s nightstand and turned on the reading lamp. He opened the drawer and found his roommate’s cell phone. Looking towards the door for a second to make sure he was alone, he dialed quickly. 

Remy’s answered in a whisper. “Oui?” 

“Hey, man, it’s me, John.” 

“Yes, I can ’ear dat. What you wanting, John-John?” 

“Why are you whispering?” 

“I am working. I may ’ave to ’ang up, _si necessaire, h_ okay? _”_

“Yeah, cool. Listen, about today —” 

“Yes, I come to de Museum; you _h_ aren’t dere.” 

“I know I wasn’t there, that’s what I’m trying to explain… See, there was this attack on the President, right?” 

“You are the _h_ assassin, John-John?” 

“Very funny.” 

“No, not so funny. Not so funny you waste my time, _oui_?” 

“Will you shut your face and listen a minute? We had to get out of there. I couldn’t stay behind —” 

“Is not important, _h_ okay? I show up, you weren’t dere. Dat’s the facts. I’m t’inking maybe the time is up. What you t’ink?” 

“You mean… you have to go? What time is up?” 

“I mean _toi et moi, n’est-ce pas_? Remy is t’inking you got other t’ings more important. Maybe you back with dat Bobby guy. De little white sheep, _henh_?” 

“No! You are not listening! That’s what drives me crazy about you, Remy! You think you know exactly what’s going on all the time, but you don’t fucking listen!” 

“Oops, got to go, cher. My pigeon about to fly de coop, you know? Hey, maybe I see you again a few years. You grow up a bit and den call me.” 

John’s jaw tightened like a bow string, but before he could shoot his poison arrow, the line went dead. “Fuckfuck FUCK YOU!” he screamed into the dead box. He stuffed the phone back into the drawer and slammed it so hard, the lamp almost fell off. As he righted it, Peter’s clock radio snapped on. Out of it came Jones’s voice. “John? Are you doing anything? Come to our room.” The radio shut down again. 

“Leave me alone!” he screamed. He turned off the light and stumbled through the dark back to his bed. He just wanted to sleep a bit more. Maybe a week or a month… 

The overhead fluorescents snapped on. 

“Dammit, Jones,” he moaned. But at least it was good to know someone in the universe wanted to see him. He walked to Jones and Doug’s dorm room and dropped drowsily on one of the beds. “What can I do for you?” he asked. 

Jones was seated by the massive computer station, which seemed to grow drives and peripherals by the day. Doug sat on the other bed, sipping through a straw from a large, red drink container. Jones pointed to a small screen on which an overhead camera caught a nurse as she checked IVs in a hospital room. “Check it out.” 

John got up wearily and sat in the empty chair beside him, sighing. 

“GO NUDE, SAD JON,” Doug said. 

“What? What does that mean? Hey, it’s a spy camera. In a hospital ward? They couldn’t even put it in a locker room or something?” 

Doug snorted. “DONNA JUG DOSE!” he commented. 

“What the fuck are you going on about?” John asked. 

“He’s talking in anagrams today,” Jones said as he expanded the cam window. “Here, look at the faces now.” 

John peered closer. The nurse had left and he could see the two patients clearly. A young man and woman. “Hey, it’s the coma couple!” 

“Yeah, some guy on Peep Net is a cleaner at the hospital. He set it up last night.” 

John found himself smiling. “That is awesome!” 

“Actually it’s kind of boring,” Jones said, blinking open YouTubes of bikini-clad girls on another screen. 

“No way, man. It’s like an Andy Warhol movie. The context makes it brilliant. It’s about the beauty and banality of life’s random accidents.” 

“O, DON JADE GUNS!” Doug contributed. 

John rubbed his temples and asked, “Anagrams of what?” 

“‘ _Doug and Jones_ ,’” Jones replied. “We had to figure out a name for our company.” 

Doug waved a hand under his nose and made a sour face, “U DO GAS END, JON!” 

John gave him the finger. “Your company? What do you guys do?” 

Doug slurped his drink as Jones explained. “Well, we make it possible for people to move money around without anyone knowing. It’s pretty simple. I made a network that runs parallel to but not incidental with the Internet, and Doug programmed the interface.” 

“That doesn’t sound very legal,” John said. 

“That’s what Doug says. I guess don’t tell the teachers. Anyway, we’re also making donations to worthy causes, so it all works out.” 

John lapsed into silence. He watched the coma couple on the screen, and thought about how their big wedding had been derailed by the accident that separated them from the world around them — isolated even in their togetherness. The compressed sound of their breathing apparatus was hypnotic and depressing. Maybe he’d join them… just sneak in to the ward and sleep forever, too. 

He looked over to find both boys watching him curiously. They had to know what happened today, but they hadn’t deserted him. He was moved by their loyalty. He cleared his throat. “Listen, I may have to, uh, go away sometime soon.” 

Jones said, “Why?” 

John squared his shoulders. “You know, school’s just not the best place for me anymore. Maybe time to try something different. Anyway, I may need a favor.” 

“What?” 

“I’m not totally sure yet. Maybe just, um, if I need to communicate with someone. Is there a way I can get hold of you guys in case I —” 

“JANUS DOG NODE,” Doug said and abandoned the world of anagrams. “Just type that into any search engine anywhere and we’ll see it.” He looked at Jones who nodded in confirmation. “Hey, there’s something else. Should I show him?” 

Jones nodded again, although he looked less certain this time. He blinked up a video window. “This is from Thursday night,” he said. Another surveillance camera, this time in the Danger Room. John had the sudden fear that the video would show Bobby and Rogue somehow fucking despite her lethal touch. His heart beat faster, but the unlikely couple was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he saw a strange shadow in the dim room. Panels began opening in the wall, firing missiles that were being blasted out of existence by fiery forms. 

The assault increased to include aerial robots, grenades and fire launchers. The counterattack ramped up to meet the threat, until the screen was a riot of smoke and light. Then out of the smoke, there came a noise that, even through the small speakers, gave him chills. 

“ _Akhsîfni divrr’rBrekhti Dràvan!_ ” it said, and the voice sounded barely human. Lights burst and strobed as something moved through the dimness. 

“I am fire,” Doug translated, his voice suddenly small and frightened. “I am life incarnate.” 

John’s mouth was dry. “Wh-what language is it?” 

“I don’t know. Not like anything I’ve heard before.” 

The voice descended into a low rending sound — like the beams of the earth were being tortured, like the floor of reality was about to collapse under them all — and Jean Grey, eyes shining like the sun, stepped out of the smoke. 

“JEAN GOD SOUND,” Doug whispered, as the almost-familiar figure spotted the camera, and flicked the picture dark with a wave of her steaming hand. 

 

*** 

 

It was 10 o’clock in the evening, and Kitty had put up with two hours of a chick flick called “Wedding Cake” which Rahne was watching in their room along with Jubilee. Having witnessed Jubilee in practice with the New X-Men over the last two-and-a-half months, Kitty was shocked that such a ballsy, tough-minded girl could even stand the gooey fantasy. How could Jubilee enjoy propaganda that claimed only a trip down the aisle with the right man could make a woman’s life meaningful? But she seemed to love it, screaming and laughing along with Rahne, commenting on wedding dresses and the absurd twists and turns of the central romance. 

Now Rahne had gone down to make them popcorn before they started watching — yes, sad but true — “Wedding Cake 2: Another Layer.” 

When Kitty had started her first year at the School for Gifted Youngsters, she found the distractions impossible. Even if Rahne kept quiet while they were studying (not always a given), the noises of rampant adolescence crept through the walls and the vents. At first, they had almost driven her mad. 

But something changed after Lance left; she had begun to find comfort in the house full of young mutants. It had been a stark contrast to her tense, quiet life at home with her parents. The Prydes had spent their time in hushed anxiety, waiting for the portentous knock on the door. It had started to seem inevitable that she would soon be taken away and shipped off to a concentration camp for mutants. In Westchester, at least, she wasn’t the only one facing the uncertainty. Furthermore, there were people here to fight for her. So, amazingly, she could study with “Wedding Cake” in the background, or with Jubilee on the phone to Mike Haddad in Boston: 

“No, not much. You know how it is around here: work, work, work. What about you? Yeah, Mr. Quesada always gives the hardest assignments! Kind of reminds me of Dr. Grey. Did I what? Uh, yeah, we know about it. Of course. I’m just glad the assassin failed. Can you imagine the shit storm? No, Mike, don’t… don’t worry about me. Hey, we keep a low profile here, right?” 

Okay, if Kitty wanted to be honest with herself, she was doing more eavesdropping than studying, but if Jubilee had wanted privacy, she should have left the room. The call ended with a few Hollywood-caliber “I-love-you-toos,” before Jubilee lay down on Rahne’s bed, curled into herself. Kitty couldn’t resist breaking the silence. “How’s Mike? Adjusting to life in the real world?” 

Jubilee’s response was robotically chipper. “Yeah, he’s great! Acing his classes, working on a mutant bill of rights for the school district! He’s so brave.” 

“Yeah,” Kitty said, nodding appreciatively. “You’re not so bad yourself. Kind of surprised me that you didn’t mention the New X-Men to him.” She let the statement hang in the air. Jubilee mumbled into the mattress and Kitty had to ask, “What? I couldn’t hear you.” 

“I said he wouldn’t understand.” 

“Why not?” 

Jubilee sat up, pushing the hair from her face. “Kitty! He’s all Mahatma Gandhi about everything! Any time I bring up actually _fighting_ he freaks out! We, uh, sort of agree not to talk about shit like that.” 

Kitty bit her pencil. “But ‘shit like that’ is the most important thing in your life, isn’t it?” 

Jubilee dropped back onto the bed with a groan. “Yes! Okay? And that means we can’t talk about fucking _anything!_ It’s driving me crazy. It’s like this enormous albatross just hanging there over our heads.” She flapped her arms in the air. “And we can’t say anything when it craps on us. Fuck!” 

“Sucks,” was all Kitty could think to say. 

Jubilee sat up again, locking Kitty in her sights. “And what the hell’s your story, Pryde? You show up to almost every practice and sit there in back, as if the bleachers were the best place in the mansion to do your homework.” 

Kitty felt herself blush. She turned back to her books. “It-It’s just… interesting. You know, watching you guys all sweating like gorillas. Very amusing.” 

“Bullshit. I haven’t said anything because I figure one day you’ll come down from your tower and join us. You even wore sweats once and I was _sure!_ But, no, Kitty stands alone.” 

A wave of anger spun Kitty around. “You have a problem with that?” 

Jubilee flipped the hair from her face, suddenly calm and strikingly beautiful. “Yeah, I do. I think you want to be practicing there with us but you’re scared. You’re like this walking psychology experiment. Approach-avoidance-approach-avoidance.” 

“Very clever.” Kitty flipped her hair, too. She could be as poised as Jubilee if it came down to it. After all, she had faced down Magneto and won that particular battle of wits. “Why don’t you write your term paper on me for the Professor?” 

Jubilee went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “And what’s weird is that you’re not some scared little suburban girl. Bobby told me all about the Turcott clinic. You planned the operation, you went in first and scouted the whole place. He said you were awesome, that all you thought about was saving Lance.” 

Kitty was furious. “Yeah, and look how well _that_ worked out! You sure you want me, Jubilee? Maybe I can kill your whole damn team!” 

The door burst open. “Popcorn!” Rahne shouted enthusiastically. 

 

*** 

 

John had been in bed since late afternoon, and the orgy of sleep had thrown off his internal clock. His watch showed 3:30 in the morning. He could hear Pete’s breath rumbling in his big chest and, in counterpoint, Flea’s higher breaths, punctuated occasionally by the scared moans the boy sometimes made in his sleep. John listened a while and found himself praying that whatever horror Flea was facing down in his nightmares would show him mercy — maybe turn into a puppy or something. John climbed out of bed and pulled on sweats and a t-shirt. 

_You don’t get away that easily,_ he thought. _You’ll just have to tough it out, kid._

He slipped from the room and padded down the hallway to the bathroom, peeing for what seemed a long time. His head was full of fog, but he could hear all his mental processes firing up. He knew he wouldn’t sleep any more that night. As he walked back into the empty hall of the home he had come to know so well, he suddenly choked up. All the hurt and fear that he’d covered over with the heavy wool of sleep rose up in him. 

_I don’t want to leave! Let me stay. I promise, I’ll be good._ And from deep in his bowels, the anger answered, _Shut up, you pussy! You don’t need these sanctimonious fools. The only one you need is YOU!_ But he wouldn’t listen to the anger. He had blown it. He’d taken another home and burned it down around him, as surely as he had burned his home with Keever and the gang; with Big John Barrow and his greasy spoon, with his mom. He was the common denominator; he was the fuck up. No use assigning the blame elsewhere. 

“Bobby,” he whispered into the night and wished, like a beaten dog that never stopped following his sadistic master, that he could curl up against Bobby, smell him, excite him, bring him off, and then lie there in that damp warmth until everything was better. He found himself in front of Bobby’s door. What would happen if he slipped inside? If he was quiet, he wouldn’t wake up Kevin, asleep in John’s former bed. Kevin came from a good home, probably slept deep and nightmare-free. John’s hand was on the doorknob when he came to his senses. 

_No, that’s gone! Be strong, Pyro, or you’re finished._

This time, he heeded the voice. He centered himself, breathed deep like an X-Man, and walked away. He turned the corner to head downstairs… 

…and found himself facing a soldier. A big, fucking, not-a-hologram, grenades and grease goddamn soldier. Aiming a gun at him. 


	29. Invasion (X2)

John remembered the first time the man who would become his step-father, his arch-enemy, entered his home in Syracuse. Up until that day, the man had always honked and waited out front of the old wood-siding house in which John and his mother occupied the second-floor apartment. At the sound of that strident call, John (age 11) had watched her face light up queerly — like a Christmas tree with faulty bulbs. She kissed her young son and give final redundant instructions to the babysitter as she ran down the stairs. John then hurried to the window and looked down to see her being kissed by her mysterious dark-haired boyfriend. It was summer. The top of his convertible was down, and John stared at the man’s strong, bare arms as they wrapped territorially around his mother in the front seat. He felt a kind of wary excitement at the sensuous power of those limbs, and found, as he lay in bed later that evening, that he recalled them more clearly than the man’s face. 

It had been late September when the boyfriend came to dinner for the first time. Looking back, John realized that the marriage must have already been arranged, though the courtship had been brief. His mother was more nervous than usual as her two “men” met. She fluttered around the small living room in which she also slept, pushing toys under the couch with her pale feet, pointing them like a ballerina. John barely spoke that evening except to answer questions. He was overwhelmed by the physical presence of the stranger he had up to then observed only from a distance. He watched the man move through the two rooms of his world as if as if staking a claim. The stranger peered into the tiny kitchen with its collection of chipped crockery, and into the cramped bathroom where he stirred thick fingers through the bowl of seashells. He then walked boldly into John’s room where posters of dragons and armored elves stared down mistrustfully. John followed him inside, and found the stranger weighing the heft of his Pirates of the Caribbean souvenir pirate skull. When the man turned a cold smile his way, John didn’t smile back. He felt violated by the strange presence. The man did not belong in his home. 

Much as the soldier coming up the stairs of Xavier’s mansion did not belong. 

“The fuck!” John shouted as the man in camouflage fatigues raised a gun at him. Even if John had not spent the last six weeks being endlessly attacked in Jubilee’s training sessions, his experience of ducking his step-father’s fists had long ago trained him how to hit the ground fast and scuttle. As he rolled to his right, he heard a hiss and a sharp “thunk” in the wood paneling of the hallway. It wasn’t a normal gun, but whatever it was shooting, John didn’t want to be hit by it. 

The soldier began climbing the last flight of steps as John rolled behind a palm tree, growing in an antique Chinese ceramic. _Sorry about the damage, Chuck,_ he thought as he braced two legs on the heavy pot and, with a grunt, sent it careening down the steps, knocking the soldier off his feet like that final stubborn bowling pin. John was up and running even before the crash of earth and clay. He reached into his pocket and cursed as he realized his lighter was still by his bedside. As he ran, he could hear brand new sounds in the mansion: heavy footfalls, breaking glass, a high cry cut abruptly short. He burst into the dorm room, snapping on the light. 

Flea’s cot was jammed in between the two regular beds, and John wasted no time navigating the narrow patch of floor. He leaped up on the sleeping boy’s mattress, and then hopped across to Peter’s, accidentally kicking the big guy in the side. 

“Whufuh?” Peter grunted, hauled out of sleep in confusion. 

“Soldiers!” John hissed as he dived for his lighter, feeling a sudden jolt of confidence as his palm grasped its cold metal surface. “We’re under attack, get the fuck out!” He was already at the door as he heard Peter calling after him, but there was no time to stop. His mind held only one thought: _Bobby, got to get to Bobby!_

He rounded the corner and almost fell over Kevin Tran. Kevin was cowering behind Neal Shaara who, in turn, was confronting another armed soldier. Neal’s hand was aglow with plasma energy which hummed menacingly and made the air around it dance in a field of distortion. John froze, his mind going instantly blank. 

Neal stammered, “G-get away! I will fire upon you!” But he didn’t fire. He was as frozen as John. John suddenly wanted more than anything to be telepathic, to urge on his classmate: _Do it! Kill him!_ But John knew it wasn’t going to happen. He could see the hesitation. Ever since he had been 12 years old, Neal had been compelled to hold in the awesome power that surged inside him. He hadn’t asked to be lethal; he had prayed to whatever gods were available to make him normal, to save him from the solar fires that pulsed through his veins. 

But soldiers don’t hesitate, and when he fired his gun, Neal wasn’t as fast as John had been. Even as the boy’s legs buckled, he shot back with a plasma burst, but succeeded only in lighting the edge of a Turkish rug on fire. Kevin screamed and the soldier brought up his gun to the new target. That’s when John unfroze. “Kevin, stay down!” he shouted and reached out to take control of the incipient blaze, bringing up a wall of flame between the X-students and the soldier. “Go! Run back to your room, get Bobby!” 

“But he’s —” 

“Go!” John moved forward, pushing the fire ahead of himself, pushing the soldier back until the man turned and ran. John absorbed the flame and it washed through him like a shot of whiskey. He bent down to Neal who was struggling in vain to stand. John found a dart in his neck. _A tranq gun?_ He pulled out the dart and saw two more embedded in the floor. 

“Help me up, John,” Neal moaned, his voice slurred. “We have to fight!” 

“Yeah, you’re not doing any fighting. Come on.” He grunted as he pulled Neal to his feet, half dragging him towards Bobby’s room. The door was open and he willed Bobby to be there, to be all right. Together they would get the fuck out of this mess. But when he hauled Neal across the threshold and saw only Kevin inside, his heart sank. “Where the fuck is Bobby?” 

The boy was crying, standing rigid as a statue in his pajamas, stroking his pet rat. “I don’t know. I woke up and he wasn’t here!” 

_He’s in the kitchen having a fucking bowl of ice cream!_ John thought, already figuring how he’d get down there without being shot by goddamn commandos. “They sent the fucking army after us, I can’t believe it.” 

“No,” Neal muttered. “No American flag on the uniforms. No emblems at all. They are a private army.” He pulled away from John, trying to stand on his own, and immediately keeled over, crashing into Bobby’s desk and sending a pile of books tumbling. 

“Jesus Christ, Shaara!” John shouted. “Get your shit together! You have to stay here and keep Kevin safe!” 

Neal was on his hands and knees, shaking his head. “John, I am ashamed. Should be defending… You-you saved me.” 

“Yeah, will wonders never cease,” he muttered. “Listen, I gotta go. You just… just lay there and if anyone comes in, fucking blast them! No questions asked, right?” He stepped into the hall and pulled the door closed. John looked both ways down the corridor, knowing that no direction was safe. He had just decided to try the back stairs when Terry’s scream shattered the air and brought him to his knees. 

 

Kitty’s brain was barely working as the terrible sound of the scream shook her teeth. The horrific wail made her want to climb into the wall and just stay there. She knew Terry had to be hysterical with fear to lose control like that. Was it a nightmare? And just like that, the scream was gone. She opened her eyes and saw Jubilee and Rahne sitting up on Rahne’s bed, looking as shaken up as she was. It took Kitty a second to remember why Jubilee was even in their room. _Oh yeah, shit movie marathon._

“What the hell was that about?” Jubilee moaned, rubbing her head. That’s when they heard the other scream. It didn’t last as long, but it chilled them. Running feet, cries of frightened kids, a distant sound of breaking glass. Kitty felt herself go rigid with fear, but Jubilee was already on her feet, putting her ear to the door. “Oh fuck, this isn’t good.” 

Rahne’s voice rose in alarm. “What’s happening?” 

Jubilee hissed at her and put a finger to her lips. “Pryde, ghost your head through the wall. Tell me what you see.” Kitty was staring at her, but she couldn’t make herself move. “Pryde! Kitty! Come on, you can do it.” 

Kitty got off her bed as if she were relinquishing the last safe place on Earth. She shivered with fear as she stood beside Jubilee. She felt the girl’s hand on her shoulder. 

“Get down on the floor,” she told her with quiet authority. “Crawl through. There’s less chance they’ll see you down there.” Kitty found her body obeying even as her mind screamed at her, urged her to run back to her bed. “And don’t materialize in case they… in case, okay?” 

Kitty took a deep breath and crawled forward, phasing through the wall slowly until her eyes were out in the corridor with its dim night lighting. She turned one way, seeing no one. Then, heavy footfalls behind her. She turned and saw two soldiers sprinting down the long hall in her direction. There was no question; they had seen her. She pulled back into the room and jumped to her feet, shouting hysterically, “They’re coming, oh shit, oh God!” 

“Move!” Jubilee yelled and Kitty jumped out of the way as Jubilee slammed Rahne’s desk up against the door, leaning her weight against it even as the invaders started pushing from the other side. “Kitty! Open the window. We have to get out!” Kitty forced herself to cross the room and opened the window. The night air was cold, and there was no easy climb down from the third floor. The next ledge was at least a 15 foot drop. The door was forced open a few inches and Jubilee screamed in fury, pushing at the desk with all her slight weight. “Rahne! Wolf-form now! Come on!” 

“I can’t…” Rahne whimpered, but then the door heaved open and the recoiling desk knocked Jubilee off her feet. Three girls screamed as the man started forcing his way through the narrow gap. Kitty found herself running back to her bed, pushing herself into the corner, her mind screaming, _No! Daddy, they’re here!_

Rahne’s scream twisted from the human to the uncanny, and Kitty turned in time to see girl become wolf. The startled invader yelled, “Holy fuck!” as wolf-Rahne turned and leaped out the open window like a nightmare vision from a vampire movie. 

Jubilee was on her feet then, shooting fireworks at the man, screaming, “Get out of my house! Get the fuck out, motherfucker!!” The man covered his face and yelled obscenities as sparks crackled across his body. “Pryde, get his gun! Get him!” But Kitty was pressed deep into the corner, unable to move. She had to help, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t break free of the terror which held her like a fist. She watched helpless as the dazed soldier fell over the desk, and powerless as a second soldier filled the half-open doorway, gun raised. A pulse of air, a blur and Jubilee fell with a soft cry, three small darts in her upraised arm. 

The man was in the room, turning on his heel, gun raised, locking Kitty in his sights. She dropped like a stone before the darts could hit her, phasing backwards through her bed, through the floor, tumbling through the second floor library and through that floor, too. Then her training kicked in and she landed on her feet on the ground floor, running pell-mell through the walls of the mansion. Her sanctuary was a war zone. Too late, too late. The Gestapo had gotten in at last. Her parents had been right all along. Everywhere around her, chaos and terror. And she ran and ran, until she was in the locker room off the gym. 

She put her ear to the door as Jubilee had in the dorm. She was crying openly now, knowing that she should go back and help. But what could she do? She was just a child! She wasn’t an X-Man! She ran for the fire door and pulled it wide. Cold wind blasted at her. On a hook beside the door hung a black, X-branded duffle jacket. She pulled on the oversized garment and a pair of too-big boots before hurrying out through the open door, running, running towards the lonely darkness of the woods. 

_I’m sorry, Jubilee!_

 

*** 

 

The Phoenix was deep in thought. The Phoenix _was_ thought, and had been for epochs. Now, she was thinking about the deep corridors of space, about the taste of gravity and the tang of light as it bent around dark matter. She remembered time without time, feeding and singing amid the coalescing proto-stars and the young solar systems. The call of the planet had surprised her, aroused her curiosity, for life was the rarest of riches in the vastness of the cosmos. She had sailed towards the blue ball, her wings full with photons, and there she had heard the green hum. It was a protean, evanescent psychic aura, generalized across a billion one-celled minds who bloomed and died and learned to desire. And what did life desire? Only more life. The keen urgency of that desire was addictive, and the Phoenix exulted in the psychic bath, dipping lower and sipping deeper until all at once, the trap was sprung. The open avenues of the stars were lost to her. 

The eons passed in her molten prison, deep in the roiling core of the Earth. She was almost content to listen from afar as the primitive psychic energy broke apart into a thousand trillion separate strivings, until the music grew so contrapuntal, it took all of her vast, time-ripened experience to decipher its code, to find the beauty in the cacophony. And perhaps she convinced herself that she was not _other_ , but mother of all. That deep in the magma, she was creator, Life Incarnate. 

Until she heard the voice of Jeangrey. 

Oh, just a child, but already so strong a note in the psychic chorus. A solo, a cadenza. And listening intently to the utterly unique voice that was Jeangrey, the Phoenix realized she was no longer a prisoner of the core. The anchor had freed the ship. But the human girl proved to be a trap herself. For if the Phoenix were to take control, to release all she was, the vessel would crack and she would again lose her place in the world above. She would lose her dream of returning to the stars. 

No, she had to wait for the wondrous girl to mature, until a time came when she could reveal herself to Jeangrey and together they could fly free. And that great moment would have already come to pass, if not for the interference of Xavier. From the beginning, he had been frightened of Jeangrey. Perhaps he felt no human could handle such a gift; no one but himself, that is. And so the Phoenix had watched in impotent fury as the brilliant vessel was reduced to gourd, a hazelnut with only enough room for the most pathetic flexings of telekinesis and the vaguest hummings of telepathy. 

The Phoenix suffered the indignity of looking out through Jeangrey’s limited human senses. Where had Xavier sent them now? She was with the Weather Witch in a temple, chasing a fugitive teleporter. _Are you bored yet?_ Jeangrey was asking. _Not for long,_ the Phoenix thought. 

 

*** 

 

It was just before 9 a.m. when Logan exited the highway and drove Scott’s exquisitely tuned car into the sleeping Sunday suburbs of Boston. The trip had taken hours longer than it should have. Every time they saw police cars, they had slipped off the highway onto side roads. Logan told them that if Stryker was working for the government, it paid to stay paranoid. John knew he was right, but he was starting to go completely stir crazy in the crowded car. And it was altogether a bad thing that he had time to think. 

As long as the night had been all “action! action! action!” he had been able to forget everything that happened the day before. But now, at the end of a long commute, it was all he could do to stop himself jumping from the moving vehicle. Not that he wanted to kill himself — he just wanted to be ejected from the smoking fuselage of his life. He was craving freefall. He wanted to be free of trying to please, free of lectures on what a disappointment he was, free from being beaten up for being himself. 

His conclusions came easily, and they were brutally clear: fuck Xavier with his underhanded manipulations. Fuck Summers who thought it all boiled down to spit polish and calisthenics. And more than anything, fuck Bobby Drake who lied and lied until reality was a swirling maelstrom of expedience and self-preservation. Fuck Bobby Drake who would tear down the walls of heaven before he’d admit to himself that he was a craven hypocrite who used everyone that loved him as props in his own private drama of self-deception. 

As they approached the neighborhood where Bobby grew up, his former lover leaned forward between the seats to give Logan directions. John, in the front passenger seat, wouldn’t look at him, but in his peripheral vision, he could see Bobby’s smooth, pale hand with its long expressive fingers, gesturing right or left as he pointed out various landmarks. Bobby seemed genuinely excited, as if he had forgotten that their home had just been invaded by fucking commandos. John longed for that ejection button. 

“Yeah, Mike and I used to hang out in this park and just talk and talk,” Bobby was explaining to Rogue with a nauseating air of nostalgia. “Our school is just around the corner. I wish there was time to show you —” 

“There isn’t,” Logan said definitively. “Which way at the lights?” 

“Left,” Bobby answered a little deflated, but then he perked up as he pointed to a strip mall on their right. “Oh! That’s where I get my ’boarding gear!” 

“Looks nice,” Rogue said politely and John rolled his eyes. Maybe it was time to cut through some of the bullshit. 

“Hey, tour guide,” he said. “What are your parents going to say when we show up in our underwear first thing on a Sunday?” 

“I think they won’t be there,” Bobby said. “Mom’s been dragging everyone to church lately, if you can believe it.” 

Rogue said, “My family went every week. Didn’t yours?” 

“Not since I was a little kid. But lately, mom’s been really enthusiastic about it. Um, I think maybe she’s trying to find real estate clients there.” 

John snorted. “American spirituality is alive and well in Massachusetts.” He looked out the window at the gaudy suburban homes with their overwrought columns and their stone walkways which meandered in sad imitation of something organic. “Where does Mike live?” he asked. 

“See that TV tower? Just to the west of that.” 

“Let’s go there.” 

“What? Why?” 

“Drake, come on! Your parents are jerks. And they don’t even know you’re a mutant! At least the Haddads will have some sympathy. They’ve been to the school. We won’t have to explain ourselves.” 

Logan looked in the rear view mirror. “He has a point, Bobby. What do you say?” 

John could feel Bobby’s scowl without even turning around. “No. Mrs. Haddad hates me. We’ll go to my house. What’s your problem, John? My folks will be cool. You’ll like them, Rogue. Honest.” 

Rogue’s voice was cautious as she said, “Maybe it’s a good time to tell them, Bobby honey. About you, I mean.” 

Bobby stammered. “Rogue! No, I… It’s _not_ the right time!” John stifled a laugh. She could upset Drake without even trying. It was a skill he wished to acquire. “Take the next left, Logan,” Bobby said testily; but then he was all eagerness again: “Hey, see that building? That’s where my Math Champs classes were! Oh, right here Logan. This is my street.” 

They headed down another anonymous, curving road and Bobby started drumming nervously on the back of John’s seat. John gritted his teeth and said nothing. After the cafeteria incident and all the fallout from that, he was scared of his temper. If he wasn’t careful, he’d burn something big time and then they’d kick him out of school for sure. Despite all his bravado with Kevin, Doug and Jones, he realized he wasn’t ready for that. Freefall was fine… until you hit the ground. He stared at the manicured lawns, brown and desolate in the dying months of the year, the bushes wrapped liked mummies. He hated this place. He hated that Bobby was glad to be back. 

 

*** 

 

Kitty’s return to consciousness was stiffness, hunger and cold. After fleeing into the woods behind the mansion, she had found shelter in a small tool shed. Curling as tight as she could, she was able to use the large duffle coat as a sleeping bag. Despite her shivering, she had been desperate for a profound sleep where she could hide from danger and from guilt. Now she was awake, and there was no escaping the reality of her fate. Early morning light was creeping through the cracks in the wall. She’d been jolted awake twice by helicopters passing overhead, but now everything was still. She phased her head through the door of the shed and, seeing nothing moving in the woods besides a squirrel, she emerged. 

_Maybe I’m the only survivor_ , she mused. _Maybe they’re all dead._ Panic gripped her at the thought, but then she calmed down. She spoke out loud, though quietly, into the chill morning air. “They’re not dead. The soldiers were using tranquilizer guns. They’re taking prisoners. I wish I knew for what.” For the first time since the attack, she felt like her brain was working. If she could just stay calm, she’d be okay. Some of the students might have escaped through the emergency hatch. The tunnels let out on the other side of the property, near the old sugar shack. She figured she was pretty close to the woodland path that led there, and set off uphill through the dense bush, falling out of her big boots more than once. 

Having a plan calmed her further. At the crest of the hill, she looked back at the house and she could see soldiers standing guard. Were they in the woods looking for survivors? She’d have to be careful. She found the path, and 15 minutes later, she saw the sugar shack. There was no sign of life, but she approached cautiously, praying that the soldiers weren’t monitoring the security cameras that were somewhere out here. Suddenly, a flock of chickadees flew out of the trees and surrounded her, diving and chirping loudly. She dropped to her haunches in surprise, but then remembered she could phase. With birds passing noisily through here, she stood and looked around, and just then Doug Ramsey, in pajamas and a bright red scarf, jumped out from behind a woodpile. 

“Kitty,” he yelled. He ran to her and threw himself into her arms. “Oh my God, I thought they got you, too!” The chickadees continued their assault and Doug shouted, “Kevin, call off your birds, it’s just Kitty!” She looked over Doug’s shoulder and saw Kevin Tran’s head pop up behind the woodpile. The birds returned to the trees and Doug laughed grimly. “This feels like a Hitchcock film!” 

“When in reality, it’s ‘Schindler’s List,’” Kitty responded. She saw students appearing at the door of the sugar shack and a wave of relief washed over her. But their faces were haggard, their emotions flattened. She seemed to be the oldest one around and that meant she better take charge. The thought exhausted her. Then she saw Peter standing in the door, naked from the waist up, in full metal form — the Colossus in the harbor that would protect them from invasion. Without a word, she walked away from Doug and up to the tall young man. She dropped her head against the cold gleam of his chest and said quietly, “I’m really, really glad to see you.” Peter wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

His kind, deep voice sounded weary. “Come on inside and get warm.” 

The survivors of the attack were fewer than she had hoped. Where was Bobby? Was Rogue here? There was Fred, but what about Terry? And, Ohmygod… Artie! Did they get Artie? The group was gathered around Roberto who was powered up, his body a pure-black silhouette. His energy corona lit the large, empty expanse of the sugar shack with a pale radiance. He was emitting enough heat to keep everyone from freezing, and Peter brought Kitty close to the center of the circle to warm up. Jones lay unconscious on the ground before them, wrapped in a blanket. There was an atmosphere of grim survival. The students’ eyes were red from crying or vacant with shock. 

“Sorry we haven’t got any food for you,” Clarice said. “We had to give whatever chips and stuff we had to Roberto to keep his fires stoked.” 

“I am sorry,” he replied. Unnervingly, his eyes and teeth appeared from the darkness of his face in a smile that offered little reassurance. “I promise I make everyone a big pot of _Feijoada_ tonight.” 

“We _better_ get back to the mansion by tonight,” Fred complained. “We’ll all starve to death out here.” 

“Kitty,” Doug said, appearing beside her. “Over in the corner there…” She followed his pointing finger and saw a dark shape sitting alone, far from Roberto’s warming light. She got up and walked to the wolf; it turned its head away as she approached. 

“Rahne,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you made it.” The wolf dropped to the ground, refusing eye contact. Kitty was about to reach out and pat her as if it were her bichon frisé back home. She almost laughed, which would have been really inappropriate. “Come on, Rahne, you need to get human again. It’s not doing anyone any good if you hide in the corner. We’re all feeling like shit, you know?” The wolf sat up and whimpered. “Oh, hold on,” Kitty said, understanding. She pulled off the duffel coat and wrapped it around the wolf’s narrow shoulders. “There. Now you won’t give the boy’s a thrill.” She stood and turned away to give the shape-changer some privacy. A moment later, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and she turned to find Rahne standing there, a single tear running down her cheek. 

“I’m so useless, Kitty,” Rahne said, her voice hoarse as it always was after her transformation. “You and Jubilee were in trouble and I-I just ran away!” 

Kitty was surprised at her own anger. “Shut up, okay? No one expects anything from you. You never even use your power! It’s me that should have saved Jubilee.” Rahne gave a little sob and pulled the coat tighter around her. Kitty knew she was being a bitch, but she couldn’t deal with babysitting Rahne now. “Look, I’m sorry. Just go sit with everyone over where it’s warm.” 

Rahne walked away and Kitty circled around the perimeter of the room to join Peter, kneeling on the ground beside Neal Shaara who was lying on a wooden bench. Flea was beside Peter, practically hanging off his neck. “Hey, Flea, you doing okay?” she asked. The boy nodded automatically. His eyes had the same haunted deadness as the others’. She looked down at Neal whose brown face was unusually pale. “What happened to you, Shaara?” she asked. 

“Tranquilizer gun. I am feeling better now.” 

Peter smiled. “Yeah, except every time he stands up, he pukes.” 

“Heh, then do us a favor, Neal, and stay down,” she said with a smile. She turned to Peter. “You been armored up all night?” 

“I want to be prepared,” he answered. “And the metal protects me from the cold. Unfortunately, this form uses up more energy. I’m starting to get tired.” 

“You got the students out. That’s amazing.” 

“Everyone did their part. They’re brave kids,” he said. “I just hope no one’s really hurt.” 

“John!” Neal exclaimed weakly. “You should have seen him, Kitty! He saved me and Kevin. I-I have been wrong about him. I thought he was a coward.” 

Kitty was amazed. She’d never seen Shaara anything but contemptuous of John Allerdyce. Apparently, she and Rahne weren’t the only ones with a burden of guilt. How could any of them ever be the same again, she wondered. “Where is John?” 

Peter said, “Fred saw him with Bobby and Rogue, but then no one knows what happened after that.” He stood up. “Flea, I need to talk to Kitty. Go sit with Doug. Maybe he can help you with your trigonometry. It’ll be okay. Go on.” 

Peter walked Kitty back outside where he dismissed Kevin and Sam from guard duty. Sam seemed unusually monosyllabic. “What’s with him?” Kitty asked when they were alone. 

Peter shook his head. “Terry. The soldiers took her.” 

“Shit. If she hadn’t screamed, I bet they would have gotten a lot more of us.” She shivered in the cold air. “Where’s Logan, Peter?” 

“He was fighting the soldiers. I guess he’s either captured or…” He let the sentence hang. She shivered and Peter said, “You gave Rahne your coat, didn’t you? You must be cold. Maybe Doug can lend you his scarf.” 

“I’m okay. Look, we have to do something. These kids need help. Should we sneak them off the property? Go to the police maybe?” 

“We can’t take the chance. After the assassination attempt on the President, we don’t know how much we can trust the authorities. What if we all end up in some kind of detention?” 

“Is there a mutant Guantanamo yet?” 

“Why don’t you ask Magneto?” The bitterness of his response caught her by surprise. He put a big metal hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to think this through all night. You’re right; they need shelter and food — and soon.” 

“The house is still surrounded by soldiers. Why haven’t they come after us in the woods?” she asked. 

“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t figure we’re still here. Maybe they’re waiting for orders.” 

“Look, they’ll be guarding the doors,” she said. “But if you can get me near any wall, I can phase into the mansion. We need food, blankets —” 

“It’s too dangerous, Kitty,” he said after a pause, and she felt like he was testing her resolve. Fine, she always passed tests. 

“Well, let’s at least try, Peter! We have some Level 3 mutants here. Neal’s down for the count, but Sam, Roberto… It’s a decent little army.” 

“Roberto’s been powered up for hours; he’s weak now. Sam… is too emotional to be relied on.” 

“Well, Kevin has his birds, and there’s Lizzy, Fred —” 

“Up against trained soldiers, Kitty? They’re just children! It’s out of the question.” 

“As if you and I are even old enough vote.” 

“It’s different. We’re the New X-Men.” 

She didn’t correct him. “Okay, Colossus, so it’s you and me. And you’re right, we need to leave some strong ones here to protect the others.” 

“Right. We’ve established a good perimeter, and we have early warning… as you saw.” He smiled for the first time. 

“And if Shaara can keep his lunch down… Shit, I wish Jubilee was here.” Kitty remembered Jubilee during the attack, fearless and furious, and she almost started crying. She dug her nails into her palm to clear her mind, and together, she and Peter planned their action. 

 

*** 

 

At last, the Phoenix was flying. True, she was merely a mind inside a mind inside a machine; but after eons enslaved to gravity, she had finally left the earth. The conveyance was laughably unsubtle, burning through quantities of combustibles just to stay aloft. The inelegance of it frustrated her terribly. Still, it was enjoyable to use Jeangrey’s telepathy to probe the other minds in the “jet.” These newly evolved beings, the “mutants,” represented a fascinating leap forward for the dominant species of her world. The Phoenix felt proud of these foster children. True, some of them were merely humans with showier plumage, but some held true potential for transformation. The absorber, for instance. If she weren’t so scared of taking what was hers by right, she could become a being of awesome beauty and power. 

Mmm, and the fire dancer. He was closer to chaos than any of them. She could taste the blaze of anger the day’s events had set off in him. Much of his confusion was about the endotherm. What an unworthy object of so much emotion. _Let your anger burn through your confusion, Child!_ She was sorely tempted to ignite the flame source in his belly so that he could birth his own cleansing fires. Best of all, he hated Xavier. _Oh, Little Fire, what fun we could have._ But like Jeangrey, he wasn’t yet ready. 

She sensed the presence of the hostiles before the jet’s machine-mind informed the mutants. The hostiles had the capacity to destroy the jet. The Phoenix weighed her options even as the mutants awoke belatedly to their peril. Explosive projectiles were heading their way. She tested the strength of Jeangrey’s mind. It was almost ready. Still, if she were to suddenly incarnate, the psychic shock might kill the host. Something gentler, then. Perhaps she was ready for direct communication… 

_*Jeangrey. You must reach out.*_

_*Who…? Who is this? Professor?*_

The barriers that Xavier had constructed had once been sufficient to keep the Phoenix locked down in small corner of Jeangrey’s mind, but now they were gossamer. Now they existed only through her sufferance. 

_*You know who i am, Jeangrey. I am you (a lie). I am the part that has waited.*_

_*I don’t understand. Your voice is mine, but —*_

_*Enough. You know there is no time. Do you feel the projectiles? The… “missiles?”*_

_*Yes… I don’t understand, but I do feel them. There! I have one. This is amazing, but I don’t understand how this is possible. I’ve never had esper capabilities. How can I both visualize and —*_

_*Shhh, shhhhh. Still your thoughts. The universe is only as far away as your conception of it. All that is there is here. It is yours to manipulate. Do you know this to be true?*_

_*I think so. Yes.*_

_*THEN DESTROY.*_

The Phoenix felt the missile explode. The smallest of ignitions to one who had caused the death of suns. Still, it was the next key to the next door to freedom. 

 

*** 

 

Kitty phased back out through the wall, carrying a heavy pile of folded blankets. The location they had picked for their own raid on the mansion was on the North side, in a shadowed alley where the ground floor lay at the bottom of a hill. Between the topography and some advantageous bushes, they had as much protection for their operation as they were going to find anywhere. Kitty was breathing hard as she crouched with her loot behind the big box of ice salt that was already full and ready for the first snows of the year. She had never phased as much material as she had today, and it was exhausting. But the adrenaline thrill of defying their oppressors kept her going. She pulled off Doug’s red scarf and draped it over the top of the box before crouching low again. That was Peter’s signal to come down from the tree line and pick up her load. 

She had already brought out four cartons of granola bars and a big box of milk powder, as well as four flashlights and six pairs of boots. If only she dared penetrate the mansion deeper, she would look for one of the X-phones and try to reach the teachers. But the soldiers were everywhere, and all her new-found bravery popped like so many soap-bubbles if she got too close to them. 

She heard the sound of Peter’s fast and stealthy approach and she moved over to make room for his big form behind the small shelter. “Excellent!” he said, checking out the blankets. “You’re doing really well, Kitty.” 

She smiled, but then slapped his metal arm. “Hey, code names in the field, Colossus.” 

“You don’t have —” 

“Shadowcat. I’m Shadowcat.” 

“I like it! Sounds like you’re an international art thief.” Kitty grinned at him, but then she stopped in surprise, suddenly seeing something in his unguarded smile. He liked her. Like _that_. Even in his metal face she could see it. Why hadn’t she ever noticed before? A moment of embarrassed silence followed. Looking away from her, he took the pile of blankets in his big arms. “Uh, okay then,” he said. “Just a bit more and we’ll head back. You must be getting tired. You scared?” 

“Not really so much anymore,” she answered, looking down at the ground. Then she looked up again to see if he still had that look. She wasn’t sure. “I better get going.” 

He stood up and hurried across the gap towards the trees. 

“Peter! Uh, Colossus,” she called and he stopped halfway across the gap and looked back. “What should I get next? Clothing or more food?” 

The harsh voice broke through the perfection of the moment: “Stand clear!” it said, and they both turned in shock to see three soldiers, some 20 meters away, one with some kind of shoulder-mounted launcher. “Fire!” he shouted and something shot from the tube. It bounced off Peter’s metal chest with a loud clang and he fell on his ass. Kitty watched in fascinated horror as the device bounced a few feet away. There was a short pause before it exploded. 

The world turned the wrong way up and time lost its meaning. Kitty found herself on the ground, disoriented, her ears ringing. She had no memory of phasing, but she must have since the salt box had been blown backwards, and much of it was occupying the same space as her body. She pulled herself to her feet and stared numbly at Peter’s fallen body. He had reverted to flesh and blood form, and he lay twisted and unmoving, half-buried in the torn-up earth. 

She was running to him before she realized it, falling to her knees beside him and clearing the mud away from his face. “Peter!” she was shouting, but the sound of her own voice was hardly audible over the rush and ring in her ears. She could see no damage other than a bloody nose. And his chest was moving! He was alive! She jumped when she realized one of the soldiers was standing above them. She twisted around and met a pair of clear, blue eyes that looked, frankly, insane. His weapon was out and aimed. “We should waste these two!” he shouted back to the others. There was a crazy exultation in his voice, a mirthless laugh that was every nightmare she had ever known: “I’m serious! No one’ll know. These pieces of shit have been fucking with us all night! Time for a bit of payback.” Kitty huddled closer to Peter, too scared to move. 

“Shut it Wierzbowski,” answered one of the soldiers. “We are not authorized to —” 

“Fuck that,” the one named Wierzbowski answered. “You think anyone cares? Muties aren’t human, Hendricks! Three of these animals killed my sister! There’s nothing human in their hearts.” Kitty was suddenly very cold. Could she save them from the soldier’s hatred? She tried to phase, but her head was still reeling, and she was just too tired. Her body remained stubbornly corporeal. “Come on,” the man continued. “We could have some fun with the cunt and then waste them both!” 

“No, soldier,” came a familiar voice. “I think you’ve had quite enough ‘fun’ today.” She looked up, brushing the hair away from her eyes and blinking back tears. There stood Hank McCoy, crisp in his navy suit, a white carnation in the lapel. Behind him were two assistants, equally professional and impressive, one talking intently into a cell phone, the other checking a Blackberry. Kitty wondered if she were hallucinating. Could there really be any more happy endings? “Ms. Pryde, are you all right?” Dr. McCoy called and moved towards them. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” she shouted hoarsely. “But Peter —” 

“Do not approach the prisoners!” said Wierzbowski, raising his gun. 

McCoy’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Soldier, may I suggest you stand down? Actually, ‘suggestion,’ is just my way of being polite.” With a horrible roar, the quiet, erudite man leaped into the air, covering three meters in a single, savage bound. As he landed on Wierzbowski’s chest with his left foot, his right deftly kicked the gun away into the trees. The other soldiers had their weapons out and Kitty heard them click into readiness. 

“That’s enough! Holster your weapons!” They all turned to find another soldier, a grey-haired man with a belly, hiking across the grass on bowl legs. The man marched up to McCoy who was now standing on the fallen Wierzbowski, one foot poised lightly on his throat. “Civilian, this operation is none of your business.” 

“I am Henry McCoy, Department of Mutant Affairs, and I beg to differ. Lieutenant, your attack on this school is unwarranted, reprehensible and, I might add, over.” 

“You have no idea how high up this goes. You don’t want to mess with my boss.” 

“Mr. Stryker? Please, he’s a boy scout who got too big for his brown shorts. Ms. Lenhardt?” One of McCoy’s assistants passed the Blackberry to the Lieutenant who grabbed it in a meaty paw and held it at arm’s length, squinting far-sightedly at the text. As he read, McCoy looked down at his captive. “Oh, I’m sorry, have I been standing on your windpipe?” He stepped off and Wierzbowski scrambled to his feet with a snarl. “Be smart, young man,” McCoy warned. 

“Lieutenant, this is _bullshit!_ ” Wierzbowski barked. 

“Shut the hell up,” the Lieutenant muttered as he handed the Blackberry back to the assistant, glaring ineffectually. “All right, troops! We’re pulling out of here. I want everyone by the front steps NOW!” 

“The _fuck_ , Lieutenant!” Wierzbowski moaned. 

“NOW!” 

The soldiers followed their departing superior, glaring back angrily at the mutants. 

“Ms. Lenhardt,” McCoy said. “Follow and remind them — politely of course — that they are to be off premises in fifteen minutes with no further property damage… Or else I will rip off their testicles with my teeth. Mr. N’kansah, have we found the esteemed Mr. Stryker?” 

The assistant folded the cell phone. “No, Dr. McCoy. He’s slipped off the grid completely.” 

“Damn,” McCoy muttered. He came forward to kneel on the ground beside Kitty. He put one of his massive arms around her and drew her close. 

“The other students?” he asked quietly. “All captured?” 

“No, most of them are out in the sugar shack. Peter and I were getting supplies. Nine are unaccounted for. And Wolverine is missing, too.” 

“We’ll get them back, don’t worry.” He bent down and patted Peter’s cheek with a gentle, oversized hand “Young man? Are you still with us?” 

Peter’s eyes blinked, and when they opened, Kitty gave a cry of delight. “Holy shit, are you okay?” 

Peter propped himself up on his elbows. “Yes, fine, I think.” 

“They hit you with a fucking grenade, Rasputin!” she said, grinning, a renewed cascade of tears streaming down her face. 

“Indeed?” McCoy said. “You are like this school, Mr. Rasputin. Our enemies may strike a blow, but it will not fall.” 

Peter reached up and brushed some mud from Kitty’s cheek and she blushed. Her senses felt flooded by the proximity of his naked torso. Peter pulled back his hand and cleared his throat. “Dr. McCoy, where are the X-Men?” 

“Getting themselves in hot water as usual, I suspect,” he responded lightly, but no one had the heart to laugh. Together, they walked around to the front of the school where the glaring soldiers were pulling away in large, unmarked vehicles, scattering gravel in their wake. 

“Oh, Dr. McCoy! Dr. McCoy!” 

They turned and saw the school’s cook, Margit De Man, running up the driveway towards them. Her usually immaculate grey hair had escaped its clips and flew behind her in a patterns of chaos. She ran up to them with her arms wide, as if she could hug them all at once. “Kitty, Peter, thank God! Dr. McCoy, the soldiers are all gone?” 

“Yes, Ms. De Man, all gone now. The mansion is secure.” 

Her Dutch accent was thicker than usual. “But the children! They have all been taken?” Her eyes shone with tears and there was mud on her brow. Somehow, the image of the perennially reserved and unassailably confident woman reduced to near-hysteria was too much for Kitty. She looked away, but what her eyes fell on was the once-dignified façade of the mansion, just as compromised. Shattered windows, broken trellises, grappling hooks stuck into ancestral stone — her heart, which had been buoyed by their rescue, sank again. 

“Most of the kids are fine, Margit,” Peter said. “They spent the night up at the sugar shack. We’re going to get them now.” 

Kitty turned back and watched the change come over the woman. She looked appalled. She blew her nose on a blue handkerchief and wiped her eyes with her knuckles. “In the sugar shack? But they must be hungry… And frozen to the core!” She set her jaw. “Soup,” she declared. “I must prepare soup.” They watched as she straightened her jacket and climbed the steps, her ample behind rocking purposefully. 


	30. Just Who You’ll Meet in the Dark (X2)

It lay just below the surface. It wanted out. A rage grand enough to ignite the world. But John could handle it. 

When had this whole mess started? _And you can keep your smart answers about the day he was fucking born._ No, it had started in the cafeteria at the Museum. Then it was Summers grinding him underfoot like the ten-millionth last-ever cigarette. Followed by the whole fucking mansion versus St. John and the brutal HAHA irony of the commando raid, as if his own subconscious had puked up the camouflage fuckers in revenge. It was Bobby’s baby pictures, his mother’s brittle bigotry, and his father’s silent smolder. It was Wolverine taking a bullet in the head and the almost erotic thrill of leveling a squadron of cops. Yeah, that part had been almost good. It was Rogue’s sickening touch, and then seeing her ejected from the back of the plane. Then all of them spinning to earth without hope of rescue. And as they’d plunged towards certain death, he found himself thinking, _Eat me, T. S. Elliott! It ends with a bang!_

No, John could handle it all. As long as no one got in his face. Because he was _this close_ to losing his shit. And if they pushed him, Smokey the Bear better fucking be on patrol in this forest, or else. 

Not that anyone was thinking much about him. They were all skulking around the woodland clearing like a starving pack of junkyard dogs, eyeing each other suspiciously, forced together by the extremity of their condition. After dinner (freeze-dried ravioli from the Blackbird’s emergency supplies), John climbed an embankment at the edge of their makeshift camp and watched from the shadows the way everyone glared and stared. 

Jean, Ms. Monroe and Logan had fought in the past against Magneto and Mystique, and they were openly watching the pair for signs of betrayal. Bobby had fought them, too, at Turcott’s clinic. The Master of Magnetism didn’t appear to remember Bobby from the battle, but Mystique made it clear that she did. (“Has Scottie taught you how to break out of basic holds yet, Icicle?”) Bobby was almost comically nervous of her. 

Rogue, far from being afraid of the pair that had tried to sacrifice her for the greater good of mutantkind, seemed ready to tear Magneto apart. If looks could kill, as they say. Ms. Monroe had to spend a long time talking with her down by the creek, calming her, making her see the bigger picture. 

_No one better try calming me down_ , John thought. 

He was also aware of eyes that steamed with covert longing: Logan for Jean, Mystique for Logan. Even the Nightcrawler guy for Storm. _Heh, they’d make an interesting pair._

This confusing brew of hard feelings and hidden agendas made for a night of tenuous détentes. In that spirit, John was keeping the peace by steering clear of Bobby and Rogue. When they’d all boarded the jet back in Boston, the school’s favorite couple had made it plain they thought his actions had been irresponsible. _Well, fuck you, Mickey and Minnie!_ Their ingratitude stunned him. He thought again about his show of force on the Drakes’ front lawn. Maybe blowing up the squad car had been a bit… dramatic. On the other hand, if you want respect, you don’t pass out cupcakes. They were in trouble and he’d handled it. He was still furious at Rogue for draining him. He shuddered at the memory of his life-force passing through his skin into her. He hoped it gave her heartburn. 

The adults had been in pow-wow around the campfire for a while, and John shifted nervously on his hillock. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, but he hated not knowing what was going to happen next. When the meeting broke up, John watched Magneto head for the flatbed trailer on the four-by-four he and Mystique had arrived in. He was pretty energetic for an old man. What was the real story of him and Xavier, he wondered. 

John noticed Logan slipping into the woods, and felt a lurch in his crotch. He imagined hooking up with the guy deep in the night forest, spun around to lean against a tree, pants pulled forcefully down… 

He watched Jean climb the steps into the Blackbird where she was working on the ailing engines; Monroe and Wagner stayed by the fire in low conference. John realized he had lost track of Mystique. Maybe Bobby was right to be nervous — she was fucking slippery. He strained to see into the darkness… 

_Oho_. 

John spotted Logan making his stealthy way along the edge of the camp towards the jet. Jean came back down the steps to meet him. Had she telepathically felt his approach? John wondered whether they might finally get it on, now that Summers was missing in action. He wished he could hear what they were saying. He leaned forward, ear to the wind, but to no avail. Wait! Were they kissing? Holy shit, he wished there was someone he could share the moment with. Suddenly, he was aware of yellow eyes shining in the darkness. Mystique! All but invisible in the dark, herself a witness to the kiss. John jumped to his feet nervously, but then stuck his hands into his back pockets, trying to look nonchalant. _Evening, bitch,_ he thought. _You don’t scare me._ He walked down the hill to her. She tilted her head as he approached, barely acknowledging his presence, and they watched together as Logan left and Jean climbed back into the plane. 

“Hmm, I was hoping for a bit more of a show,” John ventured and she smiled coldly in return, saying nothing. “So, listen, you think I could maybe talk to your boss sometime?” 

“What about?” she said and her metallic voice seemed to insinuate itself uncomfortably into the spaces between his teeth. 

“Well, uh, I got through all his writings this summer. I’d love to discuss some of the more interesting points.” 

“Magneto is busy preparing for the coming ascendancy of our kind. You’ll have to finish your little book report without him.” 

“No, you don’t get me! I’m serious about…” He trailed off, realizing he wasn’t going to get past her superior attitude. He brushed his hair back off his forehead. “Okay. Just tell him he’s got some good ideas, but he needs a fucking editor.” He turned on his heel and walked away, half expecting her to bean him with a rock from behind. He met Wagner coming up the path and, in the mood to sow more confusion, gave him a wink and said, “The blue lady told me she thinks yer hot.” John moved on, chuckling to himself as he passed the Blackbird. 

_*John?*_

The voice in his head caught him by surprise and he sputtered, “Huh? Who?” into the night before he realized the telepathic voice was Doctor Grey’s. 

_*Would you come up and talk to me?*_

He immediately wondered how he could get out of it. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up telling her what he really thought of her missing boyfriend, how he hoped he was strapped to an interrogation table with electrodes up his ass. But she had always been decent to him, so he pulled his shit together and climbed the ramp. 

Dr. Grey was sitting on an upended packing crate, examining some inscrutable piece of machinery whose casing was dented and black with soot. She looked up at him and smiled. “How are you doing? Been quite a day, hasn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” was all he could reply. He thought she looked tired, older than usual. 

“I sensed you walking by, and I thought maybe we could talk. Why don’t you sit down?” she indicated a small bench by the wall to her right. Reluctantly he moved there, not liking that she was between him and the door. It felt weird to be scared, but he had seen what the new Jean Grey was capable of. In his mind, he could still hear the horrifying sound of her voice in the Danger Room footage that Jones had shown him, speaking a language so foreign, even Doug couldn’t place it. 

He didn’t want her picking up any of these thoughts, so he quickly spoke up. “Hey, it’s swell you want to talk, but aren’t you supposed to be fixing the jet so we can go do whatever it is we’re supposed to do next?” 

She held up the charred component. “Do you know what this is?” The forlorn tail of a severed cable hung limply from its underside. Whatever it had done to keep the Blackbird in the air, it sure wasn’t doing it now. 

“Not a clue,” he said. 

“Neither do I. I mean, I’ll figure it out, but right now my brain needs a break.” She put the unknown object on the floor with a small “clunk” that echoed in the cold, metal room. “John, you and I haven’t talked in a long time, and I’ve been concerned about you.” He felt a creeping anxiety. Was it worse to be trapped in here with some mysterious force that spoke mystery languages or with someone who was _concerned_ about him? 

“Shit, everyone’s always so worried. They think I’m going to go psycho and fry the mansion in the middle of the night.” 

“That’s not what I meant, John. Though, I’ll admit, you weren’t exactly a model for responsible use of powers at the Museum yesterday.” 

“Yeah, yeah, and today I actually crossed the line and went after the fucking police!” He stood up, searching for the courage to cross in front of her and leave. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what —” 

She reached out a hand. “John, I’m not upset with you. I don’t think anyone can fault you for what happened in Boston. The police used lethal force against Logan. You had no way of knowing if you were the next one to get a bullet in the head. Or Rogue. Or Bobby. Please sit down.” 

He sat cautiously. He wanted to trust her, but his supply of trust was running low. “Well, good. I’m not sure your boyfriend would see it the way you did.” 

“You met with Scott after Storm and I left, didn’t you? I’m guessing he didn’t go easy on you.” 

John smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “He has my balls locked up in his desk in a little jar.” 

She lowered her head and laughed quietly. “I’m sorry.” 

“That’s fine, yuck it up, doc.” 

“No, I’m sorry the two of you can’t get along better. I wish you could see each other the way I see you both.” She went quiet and gave him a searching look, full of sadness and compassion. He thought of how kind she’d been to him when he came to the mansion. He had been angry and scared, sure they’d throw him out once they knew all about him. But Jean had accepted him despite knowing that he’d been a hustler. She’d spoken to him with rare respect. 

“John,” she said. “This isn’t something I’m supposed to say, because I’m part of the faculty and we’re supposed to always...” She searched for the words. “…show a united front. Even more so because we’re the X-Men. But I think you’re smart enough to hear this and understand. I want to apologize for the way Scott treated you last year because of your relationship with Bobby.” 

Again John felt the urge to leave. Discussing Bobby was not safe. No, if he wanted to keep his cool, he should get up and walk. But Jean Grey was uniquely free of bullshit. Maybe he could take the chance with her. “It doesn’t matter now, Doc. It’s all water under the bridge.” 

“It can’t be easy for you. You have to interact with him everyday. And with Rogue.” 

John gave little laugh, but it felt like he had swallowed a thistle. “At least I get to beat up on them in practice sometimes.” Unbidden, the image appeared in his mind of Bobby at a training session, the sweaty boy pulling off his t-shirt and wiping his brow with it. His curls shone. His smile was brilliant and fatal. 

John’s voice was suddenly husky and he had to force the words past the thistle. “I keep waiting…” 

“Waiting for what?” 

“For all the words that never got said. He never broke up with me. Never said — the words.” 

“‘It’s over.’” 

“Right. God… fuck! Or even that it _began_. And I didn’t care, you know? All that ‘I love you’ crap and ‘let’s go steady;’ it’s all bullshit. Because I knew! I knew that he had rescued me and that he wanted me and…” He had to steady himself for a few seconds. “But then at the end, he thought he could get away without saying the words, too. You know?” 

“Maybe he’s scared, John; scared what people would say, scared what he’d have to admit to himself. If he used the words.” 

John sighed and it came out as a little sob. Fuck it. He sat himself up and ran his fingers through this hair. This was not the time to cry in his soup. “Whatever. You don’t always get what you want, right? That’s a song from your time.” 

“More like my parents’ time. What do you want now, John?” 

“I just want to sleep forever,” he said, but he saw by her reaction that she thought he meant suicide. “No, not like that. You know the coma couple?” 

“The what?” 

“This couple in California. Car accident just before their wedding. Now they’re in side-by-side comas in a hospital.” 

“Oh, that’s so sad.” 

“Sometimes I imagine that it’s me and Bobby. And nothing can come between us. No one can touch us.” 

“But you can’t touch each other.” 

“Yeah, like him and Rogue. Whatever.” _Shit!_ He shouldn’t have brought it up. He thought she’d get it, but all he’d done was spread-eagled himself on the shrink’s couch. 

Dr. Grey leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, bringing her face close to his. “John, maybe it’s time you talked to him. These unresolved feelings, I think they might be poisoning your life. We’re all watching you slide into anger and depression.” 

John sat up very straight, trying to remain calm. “Look, we’ve said enough. I don’t want to talk about —” 

“Please, John, hear me out. Forget about your fight with Scott. It’s up to you to take back control of your life. Maybe if you start by confronting Bobby —” 

John’s whole body was tense now. “No, cut it out! I am not discussing my _relationship_ with Bobby. He and I have _nothing_ to do with each other anymore. It was a mistake. I was a total idiot to think that I could have something real with a kid like him. My bad. Now, it’s over and I just want to get on with my fucking _life!_ ” He stood again and this time he did walk around her. He needed to be alone or he’d fucking do something truly, terribly irredeemable. 

She didn’t stop, though, and her words ambushed him from behind. “Can’t you see it? You’ve been trying to bring your whole life down around you!” Despite himself, John stopped at the top of the ramp. He turned to face her, his face contracted in a grimace. 

“Do you think I _want_ everything to turn to shit around me? You think that’s how I get my jollies?!” 

“Look how you sabotaged your writing! The Professor was so proud of you and your progress, but as soon as you and Bobby broke up —” 

“Oh, no, you stop right there, Doc! Don’t you lecture me about the selfless charity of Charles Xavier! You know why I stopped working with him? Because I didn’t want to be his pawn anymore! He spent six months handing me a line about how my words were going to change the world! But he was the one who wanted to take all the credit. The selfless philanthropist who rescued the penniless whore and made him speak pretty words. I’m Eliza fucking Doolittle to him. Just like Summers and Storm. And you!” 

She gasped. “That is unfair and ungrateful, John.” Hurt, disappointment, anger burned in her eyes. But he was St. John the Truthsayer! He was proud of himself. “The Professor took you in and nurtured your talent,” she said. “The same as he’s done for all of us.” 

Bad. It was bad what he was doing. He marched himself halfway down the ramp before he turned back to her. “Jesus Christ, at least I woke up and realized what was happening! You’re so fucked up, you don’t even know you spend half the time as some sort of psychic Godzilla!” 

Jean’s face drained of color. She looked liked she was trying to remember some forgotten nightmare. “Wh-what are you talking about?” 

“Think! Don’t you remember when I found you in your office that time? Or what about blowing up the Danger Room on Thursday? You can’t possibly be so out of it —” 

_*CEASE!*_ The voice went through him like a knife. He was suddenly dragged back into the jet and lifted into the air by an unseen force that squeezed the breath from him, like the talons of an enormous bird of prey. He didn’t even have time to scream before he was slammed into a bulkhead. The talons released him and he fell to the floor, landing hard on his side, gasping for breath, gripped by abject terror as surely as he had been gripped by the telekinetic force. His head filled with noise. It was like the voice had left its spawn in his mind, and they were all babbling and hissing together in an unholy choir: 

…free from the prison …blaze, blaze! …rr’frznakhii ’Atmnn! ’Atmnn! …the beckoning of worlds without end… 

He whimpered and curled into a ball. But the light was growing brighter and brighter around him, red and terrible. He dared look up between his fingers and there was Jean, floating in the air above him, her hair a brilliant red and flowing wild as a flame around her, her eyes twin stars whose gravity threatened to pull him in and tear apart his soul. The voice spoke: _*YOU MUST NOT AWAKEN JEANGREY TO THE MAGNIFICENCE! I-I AND I ALONE MAY DO THAT!*_

John found himself whimpering, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, I’ll be good!” 

Outside, he could hear Storm, her voice raised in alarm. “John? Is that you? Jean, what’s going on?!” 

The terrible light was pulsing through all the colors of the rainbow, and when he dared look again at the Phoenix (for that, he suddenly understood, was its name) she was smiling. _*Yes,*_ she said. _*You will be good, little fire. You’ll be very good indeed!*_

He couldn’t scream, so the world screamed for him. 

… 

“I’m sorry the two of you can’t get along better,” Dr. Grey said. She bent to pick up the charred component, turning it absently in her hands as she spoke. “I wish you could see each other the way I see you both.” 

She went quiet and he felt regret for the pain and frustration he was causing. He didn’t want to hurt her; he just wished she wasn’t so damn naïve. “Look, Doc. Me and Summers… Mr. Summers… we are who we are, and you can’t change that. If I leave the school —” 

“John, you don’t have to leave the school. We can —” 

He put a hand up to stop her. “If I leave the school, just remember that I appreciate everything you did for me.” He became aware of an ache in his left side. He touched his ribs and hissed at the pain. 

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” 

“Yeah, probably back in Boston. Didn’t notice till now. It’s nothing.” He stood and walked to the ramp. 

“John,” she called and he stopped. “You remember that I’m here for you whenever you need me.” 

He was about to thank her when she got the strangest look on her face. “What?” he asked. 

She held up the component. “I know what this is! It’s a flow regulator for the axial stabilizers. Yes, I can see the whole thing in my head! I know how fix this sucker.” She grinned and gave the floor a whack. “Scott would be proud of me!” 

“Heh, bolt from the blue,” he said and suddenly a shiver ran through him. He looked around the room as if trying to remember something, like the fading reverberations of a bad dream. “Uh, I’ll leave you to it, Doc. Thanks.” 

“Get some sleep, John. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day for all of us.” 

He ran down the ramp, suddenly desperate for some fresh air. As he approached the campfire, he passed Ms. Monroe. 

“Time for bed, John,” she said. “The tents are already up. We’ll wake you at dawn.” 

He nodded silently, struggling in vain to remember. 

 

*** 

 

Peter walked alone through the main floor corridors of the mansion. The journey was sad and disturbing. Everywhere, furniture and priceless knick-knacks were overturned. He bent to pick up the broken remains of an antique porcelain diorama. The shepherd’s leg was broken and Peter couldn’t account for two of the missing sheep. He soon gave up, leaving the pieces on a side table. He felt the wind whipping down through a hole in a leaded glass window high up on the wall. They’d have to fix it tomorrow. It broke his heart to see his second home so violated. While it was easy to conjure the carefree memories of the last year at school, the dark stain of the day’s violence would never again be washed from the bricks and stone. 

He came out of the corridor into the foyer and found Dr. McCoy, on his cell phone as usual. He had a pleasant, manly face, and if you didn’t notice how big his hands and feet were, you’d never realize he was a mutant. Peter had noticed how Dr. McCoy tended to hold his hands behind his back when talking. Maybe even someone from the Department of Mutant Affairs was nervous about being identified. He saw Peter enter and raised his eyebrows by way of greeting. He closed his phone and pocketed it. “Ready?” he asked. 

“Yes, let’s go,” Peter answered and turned on the flashlight he was carrying. They headed down the front stairs and marched purposefully along the drive toward the front gates. “Have you heard any news, Dr. McCoy?” 

“Nothing good. Are the children all settled?” 

“They’ve eaten, they’re in bed. I don’t know if I’d say settled.” They walked past the darkened gardens, eerie and dim. Peter kept turning the flashlight beam from the path to illuminate alarming shadows in his peripheral vision. He needed to focus on the task at hand and stop spooking himself. Nonetheless, when he spoke, he found himself whispering. “What bad news?” 

“The Air Force engaged the Blackbird off the New England coast. The fighters were knocked out of the sky by cyclones which just _suddenly_ appeared out of nowhere.” 

Peter smiled. “So the X-Men got away?” 

“The Blackbird took a hit and went down in the woods. My contacts have no further information. I’m guessing that means the military doesn’t know where they are either.” 

Peter felt himself start to sweat. He shivered and zipped his coat up to the top. McCoy’s cell phone rang again (his ringtone was the _scherzo_ from Beethoven’s 7th, Peter noted). McCoy listened to the caller, grunting small unsatisfied responses, until he exploded, “Oh my stars and garters! All right, I’ll need hourly updates.” Peter wished the man would keep his voice down. He looked nervously at the shadowed groves that flanked them. He heard his father’s teasing, Russian-accented voice in his head: _Still seeing monsters in de voods, Piotr?_ His internal father had a point: he couldn’t spend the rest of his life skulking around, afraid of his own shadow. Anyway, the previous night’s invaders hadn’t exactly been ninjas. If they had returned for another attack, he’d know it by now. 

McCoy ended the call and quickened their pace, leaving the driveway for a small cobblestone path. “More trouble?” Peter asked, deliberately loud. 

“Yes. Magneto’s escaped.” Before the severity of the news could settle, they reached the fence. “All right, Peter, shine the light on the security panel there.” 

They began a meticulous assessment of Forge’s surveillance system, making their way around the inner security perimeter, station by station. On the fourth stop, Dr. McCoy bent suddenly. He pulled out a pair of electric cutters and rose again holding a small device that looked not unlike a slim mp3 player. “Good heavens! The little leprechaun was right!” 

“What is it?” 

“It’s exactly what Jones said we’d find. The security system works by comparing states. Every few seconds, it sees if all the parameters — open doors, electrical circuits — are the same as they were in the previous interval. This device,” he said, holding up the component, “in effect, told the system that time had stopped. It just kept waiting for the next interval and, thus, ignored the arrival of a full platoon of commandos.” 

“If Jones knew the system had a hole, why didn’t he tell anyone?” 

McCoy sighed, examining the machine somewhat wistfully. “Hayward doesn’t really understand that events have weight. To him, everything from football scores to nuclear armageddon are just interesting factoids.” He walked to the control panel, entered the pass-code and set time in motion again. “Well, there we go. The system thinks it’s still the middle of last night, but we can fix that later. It’s at least working again. Let’s head inside. I’ll stay on guard duty until 4:00. Then you can take over.” 

Despite his lingering anxiety, Peter felt a palpable relief returning to the mansion’s world of light and companionship, and he felt better still as he stepped into the cafeteria where the population of the mansion was gathered for the night. It had been Peter’s idea that the students might feel safer all together until the X-Men returned. Dr. McCoy had also pointed out that it made more sense from a security standpoint. 

It had been good therapy for the students to move aside the tables and haul in the mattresses and bedding. With food in their stomachs and something to do, the kids could forget their trauma for a few hours. It was almost midnight as Peter returned, and half of the students were asleep, the rest clustered in little groups, talking through the events of the previous night for the hundredth time. One group was listening to Sam tell tall tales of his superhero exploits in Kentucky. Peter was fairly certain that none of them had ever really happened. 

He found Rahne stroking the hair of one of the youngest girls at the school, who had fallen asleep with her head in her lap. “How are you doing?” Peter asked her and Rahne smiled back sweetly, though she was pale with fatigue. 

“I’m okay, Peter. Thanks. But I haven’t seen Kitty in a while. Do you know where she is?” 

He wandered up to the third-floor dorms, taking a left into the girl’s wing. Kitty’s door was open and the light shone from it into the dim corridor. As he approached, he could hear her voice. 

“Hi, this is Kitty Pryde. From Westchester. I guess you’re already asleep. Maybe I shouldn’t leave this as a message, Mike, but…” her voice trailed off as Peter approached. He stood in the dark corridor and watched her. She had her back to him, and a cell phone to her ear. “But I thought someone should tell you. We were attacked last night. Some government agency sent in soldiers. And, uh…” her voice had started shaking. “And they took some of the students. They took Jubilee, Mike. She fought really hard. She’s not dead! I don’t believe she’s dead, no way! But… we don’t know where… and-and the X-Men are gone, too. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. She told me to fight them, to take their guns and I-I just… I was too scared. I’m so, so sorry.” 

She closed the phone and started bawling. Peter felt his heart break and he moved quickly into the room. She gasped as he touched her shoulder, but then fell into his arms and sobbed against his chest. He touched her hair gently, feeling huge and awkward and unsure what to say. She was so small in his arms, so delicate and beautiful. More than anything, he wanted to take care of her and to take away her pain. 

He looked around at damage the room had sustained: the chair smashed, the door with a piece knocked out of it. After a minute, he felt Kitty’s shaking subside. “Are you feeling better?” he asked. 

She didn’t answer him, but pulled away and went to sit on her bed. She held up the cell phone for him to see, her curly hair half covering her face. “It’s Jubilee’s. I found it lying on the floor. I realized Mike was the last number called, so I hit redial fast before I could change my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.” 

Peter came and sat beside her. He wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but he was suddenly unsure. “This is all new for us. It’s hard to know what’s the right thing and what’s the wrong thing to do. But I do know you have nothing to apologize for, Kitty.” 

“Oh God, I know. It’s just… It’s like if I’m sorry enough, it’ll all be erased and we can start again.” She pushed the hair out of her face and looked up at him. “You’d never guess I get good marks in Logic.” 

“Everyone’s going to sleep now. Do you want to come down?” 

She bit her lip. “No. I want to stay here.” She looked up at him and her expression was unreadable. Kitty was all layers — sometimes sensible, sometimes angry and impulsive. Peter usually had no idea what she was really thinking. He wondered if he’d even be able to draw her. He wouldn’t know where the lines of her beauty began. 

“Should I go down, then?” he asked. “Leave you alone?” 

It was she who reached out and took his hand. Her voice was calm, but her grip was almost painfully firm. “No, don’t leave.” She searched his face again. “Would you stay here tonight with me?” 

“Kitty, what do you —?” 

“Peter, I want to have sex with you.” 

He couldn’t find the words. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry. 

She looked away. “I mean, if you don’t think of me like that, I understand. I just thought —” 

“No! I do! I mean, I always thought you were very… beautiful.” She smiled at the floor, but he could see she was as nervous as he was. “Are you a virgin?” he asked. 

She nodded. “Yes. You?” 

He felt his hand sweating, but letting go of hers was not an option. “No, I’ve been with two girls. Don’t tell my father.” 

She laughed. “No problem.” 

“Do you…” He inhaled some spit and started coughing. “Sorry. Do you have, um, condoms?” He was looking down at the rug, his eyes darting to and fro across the pattern of the weave. 

“Yeah.” She reached into her nightstand and pulled out the little package. They both blushed as she handed it to him. “Jubilee gives them out to everyone, along with little safe-sex speeches. She’s pretty awesome.” 

He coughed again and cleared his throat. He turned and looked into her eyes which were brown and large and wonderful. “Kitty, I’m really glad you want me to… but why now?” 

“I-I’m not sure. I just need it, Peter.” She let go of his hand and stood, moving around the room, picking up books and cosmetics from the floor, putting them back on shelves and tabletops. He could suddenly imagine the girls in here fighting the soldiers, and it was his turn to feel guilty, as if he should have stopped them. Kitty said, “They attacked us in our home. The teachers… they couldn’t keep us safe. And now I see that it’s up to us. We have to be there for each other, you know? Peter, I don’t want to be a little girl anymore. I want to grow up.” 

“Having sex doesn’t mean you’re grown up.” 

“I know that. But yes it does! I’m sick of being an untouchable ghost! I’ve been hiding away all my life. I need to feel the world! I need to engage, Godammit! Will you help me?” 

He stood and came to her. Bending, he kissed her cheek. She suddenly looked small and afraid, so he kissed her mouth. And she might have been a virgin, but she wasn’t without passion. The kiss was hot and everything he could have hoped for. He was hard instantly. Still, he pulled back and looked her in the eye. “If you’re sure, Kitty, then I’d be honored to make love to you.” 

She nodded. “Good, let’s do it,” she said, as if they were going to launch a canoe or make cookies. 

He closed the door, and when he turned she was sitting on her bed, undoing her blouse. He knew she was not considered a great beauty, but to him she was Boticelli’s Venus. “Kitty, I should warn you… I’m kind of, um, big.” He felt himself blush again. 

She laughed nervously. “Shit, Rasputin, you’re the only guy I’ve ever met who’d apologize for that.” She lay down on the bed. “Just go slow, okay?” 

As he climbed into the bed and took her in his arms, she looked up into his eyes. “I don’t love you, Peter. Is that okay? But you’re my friend and I trust you.” He hesitated only a moment and then nodded. Under the circumstances, it was enough. 

 

*** 

 

“Knock, knock,” Bobby said as he unzipped Rogue’s tent and stuck his head in. His girlfriend was sitting on her sleeping bag in a black X-jacket, knees tucked to her chest, chin resting on her knees. He picked up the small stuff bag containing his sleeping bag, and began climbing into the tent. 

“I didn’t say ‘come in,’ did I?” she said without looking up. 

Bobby froze, one foot inside on nylon, one out on the forest floor. He looked around, embarrassed, but no one was nearby. _Where’s John?_ He wondered. _I haven’t seen him since dinner._ “Rogue, honey,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?” Receiving no answer, he hesitated another second and then finished climbing in, zipping the tent closed behind him. He kneeled beside her and put a hand on her gloved hand. They were his grandmother’s gloves, and he suddenly remembered sneaking into his parent’s room to try them on as a kid. His dad had caught him and he’d had the presence of mind to say he was playing Batman. 

He gave her a small kiss on the hair and began to lay out his sleeping bag beside hers. A small overhead light was built into the frames of all the tents, and as he worked, he cast strange, monstrous shadows. 

“What are you doing, Bobby?” she asked tensely. 

“Uh, I thought we could sleep together tonight. Here.” 

She raised her head and looked at him sourly. “I don’t think we should do that.” 

“No one will know!” he protested, though in truth he was hoping they would know. “Besides, I can see you’re upset. After everything that happened to you today, I don’t think you should be alone.” 

“I think you just want to try and have sex with me,” she said and dropped onto her sleeping bag, turning away from him. “This morning we managed to kiss, and now you want to see what else we can do.” 

“No, it’s not like that, Rogue!” Bobby was hurt by the accusation, despite the fact that it was kind of true. The idea that they would come together under these trying circumstances struck him as brilliantly romantic. It would give him a chance to show he was the kind of lover he thought he kind of probably was. “But since you brought it up, maybe we could do some stuff. Maybe we’d both feel better. I mean, you were blown out the back of a plane today!” 

“Yes, thanks, I remember,” she told the far wall. 

“I was so scared for you! Not to mention the whole attack on the school.” He began smoothing out the sleeping bag and unbuttoning his shirt. 

Rogue sat up and spun around. “Bobby Drake, get out of this tent _now_! I want to be alone! It’s not just the school or the airplane! It’s everything that happened at your parents’ house today! I touched both of you — you _and_ John — and let me tell you, I felt some very strange stuff!” 

Bobby froze, staring into her eyes in panic. “And what… What did you… feel?” 

She dropped her head into her hands, rubbing slow circles on her temples. “Uh, I get such a headache after I use my powers. I don’t know what I felt. Not exactly. But you two… whatever your story is… it’s way more interconnected and messed up than I ever understood. I-I need you to not be here. I have to sleep this off. Just get out, okay? Please?” 

Bobby began hurriedly gathering up the sleeping bag in his arms. “But where can I go? All the tents are taken!” 

“I can’t solve all your problems for you, Bobby Drake. Just go!” Bobby unzipped the tent and backed out, hugging the crumpled sleeping bag to his chest like a huge, ungainly teddy bear he’d won in a midway game. “Bobby Honey,” she called after him. “I’m sorry. I love you… I just can’t…” She zipped the doorway closed and a moment later, the light went out. 

He stood uncertainly in the moonlight that filtered through the treetops. He looked around the campsite, trying to figure out what to do. Across the clearing, a small light flared and Bobby saw Logan standing by his tent, lighting a cigar, watching him. 

“Bobby,” called a voice behind him and he jumped. He turned and found Ororo, on guard duty, pointing a flashlight his way. Her breath was mist in the cold night. “This is not the time to be fooling around,” she said in the voice she used when her class was getting a bit out of hand. “We’re in the middle of a crisis. Leave Rogue be and go to sleep.” 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he muttered and turned in a frustrated circle before going the only place he could. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” John demanded as Bobby unzipped his tent and crawled in, throwing his sleeping bag down. 

“I’m sleeping here tonight. Shut up. There isn’t anywhere else. Just move your bag over all the way to the wall.” 

With a frustrated snort, John put down the paperback he had been reading by the tent’s small light. “Wow, there goes my chance for a good night’s sleep,” he said, squatting to rearrange his sleeping bag. 

“Trust me, I’m not thrilled at the prospect either.” 

They shuffled around in the small tent, bumping into each other for a few minutes, cursing quietly, until they were settled. John picked up his book and lay back down. 

“You shouldn’t waste the batteries,” Bobby said. “It’s supposed to be emergency illumination.” 

Without looking up, John said, “I could just light you on fire and read by that.” 

“What are you reading anyway?” Bobby squinted at the paperback’s cover. _Less than Zero_ by Bret Easton Ellis. “Hey, did you steal that from my parents’ house?” 

“Yeah, and it’s giving me a pain.” He threw it at the wall of the tent and sat up to pull off his shirt. “Let’s go to sleep.” 

“You’re a piece of work, Allerdyce,” Bobby muttered and bent to untie his shoes. “You have no sense of boundaries.” 

“Says the man who invaded my tent.” Lying on his back, John raised his hips off the ground and pulled down his pants. He was wearing no underwear. 

“Jesus Christ,” Bobby said as he pulled his own socks off. “Do you have to?” He kept trying not to watch John’s dick flopping around as he got himself ready for sleep. “Are you at least going to get into your sleeping bag so I don’t have to look at that?” 

John laughed. “S’matter, Drake? My manhood getting to you? I seem to recall a time when you were glad to see it whenever you could.” John lay on his back, hands under this head and closed his eyes. Bobby stared for another moment, ice floes twisting and cracking in his chest, before reaching up and snapping out the light. He stayed in his clothes. Neither got into their sleeping bags because neither ever got cold. 

With the lights out, Bobby became aware of the sounds of John’s proximity. He heard the give and take of his breathing, and the swish of his naked flesh on the nylon. He heard him scratch his pubes. He could also smell John’s armpits. He turned his head a bit and took a deeper whiff. _Damn._ The comforting feel of John lying beside him was completely unnerving. Bobby cleared his throat. “Uh, what did you mean you won’t be able to sleep? It’s not like you’ve slept alone at all in the last year.” 

“Watch as I resist saying, ‘Case in point.’ I just meant I was looking forward to some alone time, okay? It’s been a pretty shitty day.” 

“‘Pretty shitty,’” Bobby giggled. “Listen, you’re still a poet!” 

“Ha and ha.” 

“A poet and you don’t know it. I’m sorry I barged in on you. I wanted to sleep with Rogue, but she wasn’t into it.” 

“Her you listen to. Heh, ‘sleep with Rogue.’ Talk about unsafe sex.” They were silent for a minute before John said, “How can you seriously be with someone you can’t touch?” 

“I love her, asshole. Why don’t you understand that?” 

“Okay, putting aside the utter implausibility of that statement, I still have to ask: really? How can you _love_ someone you can’t touch? I mean, at least you and me always had that.” 

Bobby wanted to defend the purity of his love for Rogue, but for every argument he formed in his head, he could hear John’s refutation in advance. So he just replied, “You wouldn’t understand what we have.” The silence returned, but Bobby knew sleep wouldn’t be coming any time soon. He rolled onto his side, facing John’s shadow form. “I guess you don’t have any complaints, right? Fucking that Remy guy all the time?” The vulgarity sliding off his lips made him feel a little wild. 

“Oh yeah, we’re the hottest couple in Soho. You should see what we do with his trapeze equipment.” 

Bobby’s heart started to beat faster. He found himself gripping a handful of sleeping bag. “Yeah? You’re a couple of fucking monkeys? Banging all night? ‘Oh, Remy, harder!’” he minced in a falsetto. The rage had blown out of nowhere and Bobby felt like a small boat, tossing in the surge. 

“Drake, cut it out!” John snapped. “What the fuck?” 

But Bobby’s brain was spinning up a vortex that consumed all in its path. “What about Peter?” he hissed. 

“Peter? What about him?” 

“Your big ol’ jerk off buddy, right? You still get off with him? How many guys you need to keep you satisfied, Allerdyce?” 

The shadow suddenly moved and Bobby was thrown onto his back, his shoulders pinned to the ground. “That is _enough_ out of you Iceboy!” Bobby could just see the furious eyes above him in the dim light. He could smell the ravioli on John’s breath as he panted. “I don’t need to keep secrets from you, Drake. You’re not that fucking important. Peter and I got off once last winter and that was it. And you want the truth about Remy LeBeau? He fucking dumped my ass last night.” 

“What? You’re lying!” Bobby said, which was pretty pointless. 

“Yeah, first your buddy Summers kicked my ass around the mansion, then LeBeau dumped it.” Bobby struggled to flip John off him, but he was held by the boy’s weight, somehow weightier for its nakedness. “So don’t you _dare_ get high and mighty with me, asshole! You have everything going for you now. You got rid of your loser friend and picked up the mysterious and beautiful Marie instead. You’re king of the mansion again while I’m going down in flames.” 

Bobby felt John’s grip weaken, and took the opportunity to turn the tables. He got a leg under them and used the leverage to flip them, putting himself on top. John thrashed like a mongoose, snarling and grunting, and Bobby struggled to stay in control. John shook his hand off and Bobby reached to find a new grip… discovering John’s hard-on in the process. They froze there a second, both panting like dogs, before Bobby dropped his head and began devouring John’s full lips, hungrily. Their tongues pushed into each other’s mouths as if continuing their battle. John’s hands were pulling up Bobby’s shirt and forcing themselves down his pants, and in the mysterious mechanics of long-time lovers, the clothing soon disappeared until skin could talk to skin, the dark unknowns of night pierced by the bright light of desire. 

_God_ , and everything was right again as he licked the sweat off John’s neck, as his hands gripped the lean muscles (firmer than before with all their recent training), as his hips thrust their hard dicks urgently over and under each other. Then there was a moment when Bobby was aware of crossing some line. He could have just gone on thrusting and kissing until they came and it would have just been a runaway train, a momentary slip, a brainfart. But when he lapped his way down the torso, when he met John’s dick against his chin, lifted it, licked it with all the art he had, when he took it into his mouth with a horny sigh that said, “where the hell have _you_ been?…” 

Well, then he had _really_ done it, hadn’t he? 

John up above saying, “LeBeau’s got nothing on you, Bobby. Fuck, you have the best mouth in the world.” He didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want any words. The thickening boner in his mouth was rebuke enough, and the orgasm, proof of intent — a smoking gun. Ditto his own orgasm, flowing hotly beneath him. Please label this puddle “People’s Exhibit #1.” 

The embarrassed silence after was the most damning evidence of all. Wiping up with his boxers (he would toss them into the woods before they left), mumbling good night, climbing into his sleeping bag because he wanted protection from scrutiny, from the possibility of fucking up again. 

Cursing in despair, _What the fuck is WRONG with me?!_


	31. The Torrent (X2)

The morning came for them all. 

Jean climbed reluctantly into consciousness from a night of vivid dreams, dreams of fire and exultation. She reached for Scott, but found herself alone in a tent in the woods. _I am coming for you, my love_ , she thought. She could feel her power rippling in her like a restless sea, more present and potent than ever before. She didn’t know what the changes meant, but if she was a stronger Jean Grey than she had been before, she would use that strength to save Scott and the Professor, or die trying. 

Kitty awoke alone. She had kissed Peter one last time before he went on guard duty at 4 a.m. and then gone back to sleep. With the arrival of the new day, she felt both wholly different and utterly the same. She showered and dressed and went downstairs where she knew she would be needed. Losing her virginity, surviving the attack on her home — whatever the reason, she felt she had left her childhood behind. 

Rogue awoke from a dreamless sleep. Her headache was gone and she felt renewed. She loved sleeping in the cool night air as she often had during her time on the road. She remembered what it had felt like to be that runaway girl. Sometimes she had been terrified, but often she had been surprised by her own resilience. She had tasted the pleasure of forging her own path. She wondered if she would always feel stronger alone. The thought made her sad. _I’m sorry, Bobby._

Bobby had not slept much. He had spent hours in the darkness trying to understand how he and John had ended up having sex. How could he have been so foolish? Would John have his revenge and tell Rogue? Maybe that would serve Bobby right. He looked over at the sleeping boy who lay tangled around his sleeping bag, his eyes twitching, his hands grasping in the wake of some dream. Today, as he had so many times, Bobby swore to begin again, to be a better Bobby. 

John awoke to find Bobby watching him. He cycled quickly through three distinct responses. The first was a wave of desire and affection at the sight of the boy whose curly hair was flattened on one side. However, upon seeing the perennial scowl of accusation on Bobby’s face, John’s desire was overtaken by a surge of anger. The anger was immediately followed by resignation, because the events in this tent somehow confirmed the truth to him: his time at the School for Gifted Youngsters was drawing to a close. He couldn’t keep living through the same disappointments over and over. 

The Phoenix had not slept at all. After eons of slumber, she was quintessentially awake. Now the day of liberation had finally arrived. Hourly, she was dancing more and more freely through Jeangrey’s consciousness, tasting the pale amusements of humanity. _*Time to wake up and smell the cosmic coffee,*_ she laughed. 

 

*** 

 

“What did he say to you?” Rogue asked him. The three students were looking down through the cockpit window of the Blackbird as Dr. Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Magneto hiked across the ice and snow around Alkali Lake to join Mystique in Stryker’s underground complex. Wolverine was in the lead, warily sniffing the air, gesturing for the group to pause and then proceed at each turn in the path. 

“Who? What are you talking about?” John responded, watching as the adults finally vanished. His last sight of the group was the tip of Nightcrawler’s tail disappearing behind a tree. John turned in his chair and gave her a blank look. 

Rogue stared back at him. There was something almost scary about her intensity that day. “Come on, after we took off — you had a nice little chat with Magneto, didn’t you?” 

“He said I’m a god.” 

Rogue laughed. “I’m sure you liked that!” 

John flicked his lighter and palmed a fireball. “I’m thinking Ra. Or maybe Vulcan.” 

Bobby stood up. His expression was so blank, he almost looked bored. “You can’t use fire in here. You’ll set off the smoke alarms.” He turned and walked to the rear of the jet where he began playing with an old Gameboy he had retrieved from his parents’ house the day before. John absorbed the flame without comment. He was amused by Bobby’s public pouting. Who did he think he was impressing? Clearly not Rogue, who was pointedly ignoring him. It didn’t bother John, of course. Bobby was no longer part of his life. If anything, John was amused by last night’s unexpected sex. It had been definitive proof of the hypocrisy of Drake’s new-found heterosexuality. But hey, he’d scored a blowjob and been proven right all at once. _Who wins at life? John Allerdyce!_

He wondered what he would do if he ran away from the school. He could be like Wolverine, dropping off the map, living on the periphery where he’d have some peace and quiet for once. Or he could be a hero. He knew he had it in him. He could fry the asses of all the mutant-haters — the Friends of Humanity, the bigot politicians. He didn’t need fancy plans or philosophies; just his lighter and his outrage. Images of his life at the mansion rose unbidden in his mind’s eye and he felt a moment of panic. He would be betraying all who had reached out to him in friendship: Peter, Jubilee, Doug, Jones. Rogue. He imagined their dismay. And he could see Xavier’s sad face when he heard the news of his protégé’s departure. That image restored his resolve. _Fuck you, old man. You had your chance._

“I wish Storm had let us go with them,” Rogue said, staring out the window as the wind tossed random snow flakes in the air. “I’m not afraid to face Stryker and his goons!” 

Without looking up from his game, which beeped and whistled under the hammering of his thumbs, Bobby said, “Well, she didn’t let us go, so stop complaining about it.” 

Rogue turned on him, mouth tightening. “Don’t you care what’s happening out there? The Professor and Scott are missing, maybe dead! All our teachers are in danger; every mutant on the planet could be killed by Stryker and you’re battling 8-bit alien dragons. Congratulations!” 

Bobby just scowled and pounded on the controls like he wanted to snap the game in two, but John’s mouth dropped open at her unaccustomed outburst. Rogue seemed to suddenly hear the echo of her words. She bit her lip doubtfully and sank into a chair, not looking at either of them. “Sorry,” she said in no particular direction. 

 

*** 

 

_*Jeangrey… Do you wonder what the corridors of space look like through eyes of flame? They are not grey and dank like these corridors, believe me. Can you imagine_ _the curve of space-time? It’s not just theoretical when you touch the infinite.*_

_*Be quiet, I’m trying to feel Scott’s mind. I know he must be close.*_

_*Who are you talking to, Jeangrey?*_

_*To you.*_

_*But I am you. We are a physician, Jeangrey. How would you like to build a human being from scratch? Perhaps it will be your destiny to rebuild the race, to correct the deficiencies. We have the power.*_

_*Scott, talk to me! It’s Jean…*_

_*It is time. You must cast aside your human attachments and become the lover of the all-fire, the expansion, life incarnate. You must burn away your sentiment and fly as gods fly.*_

_*Never. I am human. I am mutant and mortal. I understand the seduction of power. You can’t fool me.*_

_*Yet you are a fool. I should take you and ride you like a steed. You have power, but you need to be broken.*_

_*Try it. I will fight you, and I will win.*_

_*But I am you…*_

_*Stop confusing me. Scott, where are you?!*_

_*He is there, Jeangrey. And not there. Listen to his thoughts:*_

_*… TO DESTROY THE X-MEN. THEY WILL FALL BEFORE ME BECAUSE THEY TRUST ME. I WILL SHOW NO MERCY. I SERVE STRYKER, I SERVE…*_

Jean gasped. “No!” She pushed Magneto and Mystique to the ground with a telekinetic pulse, just before the wall behind them was turned to rubble by the brilliant red force blast. “Go! I’ll take care of him!” She called to the pair, and rose to run after Scott. 

She found him waiting at the end of the long hall, hand already raised to his visor. Before he could fire, she reached out with her mind and lifted him in the air, carefully assessing his weight and his fragility, modulating her telekinesis so that he flew swiftly but safely. Her new level of control was still astonishing, but there was no time to think about it. She turned Scott’s head, and his force blast shot to the side, flipping a jeep into the concrete wall. Scott wasn’t fooling around, but neither was she. She forced him up against the far wall, suspended above an airshaft, and the horrible beauty of the voice in her head returned, laughing. 

_*Yes, yes, crush him. He thinks he can destroy us with his impotent bravado?*_ Laughter. 

Jean squeezed at the presence in her mind, pushing it behind a heavy door in the basement of her consciousness; but in the process, she lost her hold on Scott and he fell. By the time she got to the ledge and looked down, he had vanished. She knew she was facing a formidable tactician. She would have to be extremely careful. 

She ran back the way she had come, searching with growing frustration for stairs that would take her down a level. The dank subterranean lair, the tons of rotting concrete above her head, the extent of Stryker’s terrible plans yet to revealed, all were weighing on her. She desperately wanted to climb out of this place into the light. 

_*Yes, fly!*_ hissed the voice in her head, starting to seep like oil around the edges of the door she had closed on it. She turned another featureless corner and found the stairwell. Looking up, she could see a glimmer of light, but her way was downwards. 

_*Jeangrey, look at yourself. You are a butterfly, newly hatched, ready to open your wings to the sun, and yet you try to force yourself back into the cocoon. Summers is the past. Cut him loose and live!*_

_*Listen to me, whoever you are, whatever part of me has come loose like a torn ligament: Before Scott, I was a hollow shell. I was scared to face the world. I felt like the world’s greatest fraud; the girl with everything: brains, wealth, powers, and parents and teachers who cheered when I excelled. But inside, I could never believe it.*_

She was at the bottom of the steps. She hid behind the door jamb and raised her arms, priming a telekinetic blast before leaving the stairwell and entering the space beyond. Nothing. She moved on, twisting and turning to spot whatever hiding place Scott might have found for himself. 

_*And then this remarkable young man dropped into my life, and even though I have never seen his eyes, I knew that he could see me. Finally I was hearing words of praise and affection from someone who didn’t have any stake in my succeeding. Someone who loved me not for my brains, my powers, but for my soul.*_ There was no answering echo. The mocking, hectoring voice was silent. Good. Something in the air was changing. She heard her footsteps begin to echo louder and felt a damp breeze blow across her. She entered a vast underground chamber, where row after row of turbines stood in patient silence, waiting for someone to pull the switch. 

_*The palace of power,*_ said the voice in her head, completely free from the barriers she had erected. It spoke with clammy intimacy; it was close like the scent of ozone in the air before a thunderstorm. _*You think you know yourself. You are a fool. You skulk around these corridors like a worm, shutting off all but your primitive animal senses. FEEL!!*_

A flash. Jean’s head reeled and she dropped to her knees, clutching her temples. The schematics of the entire complex flashed before her, first diagrammatic, but then full of the pulse of life. She could taste the presence of each soldier, of the X-Men, of Magneto, Mystique, Xavier. The fear of the missing children, the tense certitude of Stryker. Then, as if the channel had changed, she heard the song of electricity in the cables. She felt the charge building in Stryker’s doppelganger Cerebro. She then became aware of the structures of the rocks around her, the seepage of water in them, the dance of life in the freezing depths of Alkali Lake, the photosynthesis in the shore plants, the rise and fall of generations of bacteria, and faster and faster until she screamed: “Stop!” 

The stream of perception was cut off as if a hand had twisted the faucet. All the knowledge slid away down the drain in her brain, too much to contain. She felt herself reach out, bereft at the loss of sensation, hungry for more. 

The voice laughed. _*You see? You see what can be yours?! He is coming now, Jeangrey. When he appears, you will destroy him. It is easy. There are a thousand ways, from the brutal to the witty. Snuff his mind like a candle; turn his form to crystal; send his consciousness from one side of reality to the other — one taste of the infinite and then madness. You will feel better afterwards. I promise.*_

_*Never! I know your secret now! ‘Ride me like a steed,’ you said. Well, if you could, you would have already. Why waste all this energy trying to convince me? I have more power to choose than I think, don’t I?*_

_*Silence, Jeangrey, you are no one to me. I am the Phoenix!*_

_*The Phoenix, huh? Then rise, mighty Phoenix. Lift me off into space. Make me eat the sun for you. BUT YOU CAN’T, CAN YOU? I have to agree to it.*_

_*FOOL! Do you think you are a seer because you deliberately blind yourself? You would be a god among insects! Yet, you debase yourself, crawling through the earth, sniffing for satisfaction in the mud. For what? This man? This fleck of a speck? Fine, here he is, you selfish child.*_

The Phoenix vanished and Jean was thrust mercilessly back into the world, finding her bearings just in time to sense the familiar telepathic presence. She spun around, throwing up a hasty telekinetic field as Scott’s optic blast tore through the air. 

“Scott!” she cried. Just a few short weeks ago, such an onslaught would have torn her apart in an instant, but now, she was matching his full-on ferocity with her own power. “Scott, don’t do this!” she shouted and, with alarming ease reached inside herself and found more power. He was blown aside like a leaf in a tornado. But when she tried to stop the power, to reach for that same switch, she found she had no control. She was wide open, a torrent of the infinite. Flames of distant suns swirled before her eyes, and their power erupted from her outstretched arms in one final wave that shook the room and threw her, painfully to the ground. 

_*Help me, Phoneix,*_ she called to the inner voice, for she was suddenly terrified of what she could do, and who else could she turn to? _*What is this power? What am I?*_ The Phoenix mocked her with its utter absence. Footsteps were running her way, and just as there had been no way to stop the force, now she seemed unable to find her power at all. She turned and flinched as her lover bore down on her, ready to deal the death blow. 

“No!” she moaned, but then he was kneeling, taking her in his arms. 

_“_ Jean, no no no, it’s me,” he said, as he would to a startled child. “It’s okay. It’s okay, it’s me.” 

And the relief was another torrent, but this time, one of love. “Scott, I thought I’d lost you!” Her mind opened to him, and his unique presence filled her: the discipline he employed to cover his pain, the love he cultivated to heal it. These were the secret traces of his being that she alone knew. 

“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “I could see you, but I couldn’t stop myself. I tried, I’m sorry” 

She fell into his arms, shaking, daring to believe everything was all right. “I love you so much.” 

“I love you.” 

A shot of pain as she struggled to stand. “Ow, my leg!” 

He helped her sit again. “Easy, easy.” 

And then it was back. Not like before, when the flood of knowledge, unfiltered and terrible, had almost crushed her consciousness. No, now it was just a taste, a connectedness: malice and double-dealing, forces of nature and flaws in the structure. The end coming, sooner and more cruelly than any of them expected. 

“Scott,” she whispered. “Something’s wrong.” 

 

*** 

 

“This isn’t right,” John murmured, kneeling backwards on the pilot’s chair, surveying the landscape. His eyes returned again and again to the spot where the group had disappeared more than 90 minutes earlier. “If Summers were planning this, he would have had a second team in position outside the complex.” 

“What do you mean? Why?” Rogue asked, and John turned and sat down in the chair. He noticed that Bobby had also looked up at him from his little land of gaming. 

“Well, if they come running out of there chased by guards, I bet they wouldn’t mind some covering fire, you know?” 

Rogue walked over and sat in the co-pilot’s chair. “Shoot, you’re right. I mean, they’ll be carrying the Professor, and they’ll have the kids with them.” 

“We hope,” John added. 

But Rogue’s excitement was growing. “And if they got Stryker’s soldiers on their tail —” 

“They’ll be happy to have us standing by.” He looked over at Bobby. “Saving the day with a bit of fire and ice action.” John felt something like hope blooming in his chest. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him at the school. This could be a way to prove his worth. 

Bobby shook his head stubbornly. “If they had wanted us to be part of this mission, they would have asked.” 

Rogue walked over and squatted beside her boyfriend. “I know, Bobby, but what if things get out of hand? We could really be —” 

“We could really be in the way. Storm is acting leader and she knows what’s best. She doesn’t need a bunch of kids screwing up her plan.” 

Rogue sat heavily on the floor and clutched her knees to her chest. “I guess you’re right.” 

“Amazing,” John said with a laugh, but the hilarity had a short shelf life, and he could already feel it curdling inside him. “Seriously, Drake. You really are the best student at the School for Gutless Yes-men.” Bobby glared at him, and John had to laugh again, a fetid guffaw, already furred with mold. “I really mean it! They convinced you that if you just do what you’re told, it will all turn out right. Charles Xavier has it all under control! Oops… The school was invaded! He was captured along with his number one, the brilliant tactician, Cyclops. Wow, what role models!” 

“Oh, here we go,” Bobby said, his lips so tight, John thought his teeth might crack. “John Allerdyce will now tell us how he knows everything better than Professor Xavier and the X-Men. With all his years of experience against the greatest villains in the world.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Selling his ass to save us all!” 

John sprang to his feet, fists clenched. “FUCK YOU, Drake! No, I don’t know everything, but I survived the streets while mommy made you dinner and you jerked off in your room over your little snowboarding magazines.” 

“You’re the jerk-off, Allerdyce.” 

Rogue put her hands over her ears. “Stop it, you two!” She stood and walked to the back of the plane. John followed, marching past Bobby without a glance. 

“Look at you, Rogue! Look what he’s turning you into! When your life fell apart at home, did you hide under the bed? No, you fucking hit the road. You didn’t wait to be told! You made it up as you went along.” 

Behind him, Bobby sneered, “Yeah, like you were there.” 

John ignored him. “You’re this fucking kick-ass girl! You’re not scared of Wolverine, of Magneto. You take what you need when you need it.” 

Rogue looked embarrassed. “You don’t understand. When I was running, I was scared all the time!” 

“Yeah, I know. I was, too, out on the street. But we didn’t give up, did we? That’s what _he_ wants you to do.” John turned and pointed at Bobby whose eyes were blazing fury. “He doesn’t want a tough, independent girlfriend. He wants Marie, his nice little Southern Belle, who bats her eyelashes at him and makes him feel like a man.” 

“That’s enough, Allerdyce,” Bobby said quietly, rising to his feet. 

“No, it’s not _nearly_ enough, Drake! Rogue, you have to cut yourself loose from him! Fly! Fly the fuck free!” He put his hands on her shoulders, staring into her face, trying to find a way in so she could see the truth. “Do you even know how amazing you are? Because _he_ won’t tell you.” 

Rogue pulled away from him. “But he does! He does tell me, John.” 

John grunted in frustration. “No! You don’t get it. Him saying, ‘way to go, honey!’ after you do a perfect tuck-and-roll is not what I… He’s fucking quicksand, Rogue! By the time you realize what’s happening, you’re sunk to your waist and your flame is _out!_ ” 

He turned to hurl the abuse directly at Bobby and saw the ice flowing from his former lover onto the floor of the Blackbird. Mist rose, the air crackled. “Leave her alone,” Bobby growled, raising his arms to attack, his hands indistinct in a steaming mass of frozen air. Rogue gasped and John, belatedly realizing he’d pushed things too far again, reached for his lighter and palmed a defensive fireball. 

Rogue jumped in between them, arms outstretched in both directions. “No! Stop it this instant!” She turned to Bobby, eyes wide, her voice strong and commanding. “Bobby! You will not attack him!” She spun on her heel. “John, absorb that flame _right now!”_ John found himself complying, and watched Bobby’s warrior stance wilt in embarrassment. “I can’t stand this anymore!” she shouted, moving to stand by Bobby. “How are we going to be a team next year if you two can’t get along?!” 

Bobby wrapped an arm around Rogue, and she put her head on his shoulder. John couldn’t believe his eyes. _Why didn’t she get it?!_ If he wanted to get through to her, he’d have to show he wasn’t just talk. 

“That’s it,” he announced and reached for the door controls on the wall beside him. The ramp lowered with heavy hum. He inhaled sharply as the stale air of argument and disappointment was blown away in the fresh blast of cold, sub-arctic wind that flooded the hold. 

“Ho! Where do you think you’re going?” Bobby called uncertainly as John started down the ramp. 

John stopped halfway down and turned back. “I’m sick of this kid’s table shit. I’m going in there. I’ll position myself above the entrance to the spillway and wait for the team. You joining me, Rogue?” He held her eyes, remaining totally still, willing her to come. 

She pulled away from Bobby and stood at the top of the ramp. He could see the temptation in her eyes. Her indecision was excruciating. “John, they told us to stay here…” 

He found a smile to lay across his face. “You always do what you’re told?” He turned and walked out into the snow. His checkerboard canvas shoes were soaked in no time, but the cold just cleared his mind. He trudged past the pines in the direction of the compound, moving as fast as he could in the ankle-deep snow. She needed to realize he was serious. When he turned the corner where the group had earlier disappeared, he stopped and waited for her. There was no sound but the wind. High above, a hawk turned, looking for a warm meal to reveal itself. _The world is full of predators,_ he thought. _But once you accept that, you can prepare yourself._

Suddenly, he heard a rustling of branches behind him. She was coming after all! His heart rose giddily. He was surprised by the deep gratitude he felt. And maybe… maybe it was both of them. John, Bobby and Rogue would stand watch together, save the team in their hour of need. It would be the beginning of a new life. Reconciliation. He turned as nonchalantly as he could, and saw the source of the noise: a fox who eyed him warily as it slowly crossed open ground, before breaking into a run and vanishing into the woods. His heart sank. He waited five more minutes before he accepted that Rogue wasn’t coming. 

_Fuck it._ If he was alone, he was alone. So now what? Follow the plan without them. The savior routine still had legs. He could still earn some respect on his own. 

He made his way carefully down an icy hill and soon found himself crossing a rocky field where stunted pine trees fought for purchase. Out of nowhere, he felt the presence of a fire. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was close. It was weirdly pure, like no fire he had ever known before, and it felt a hundred flavors of wrong. Then it began to talk to him in the way fire had before he came to the mansion: “…the urge, the urge. Devour and grow. Ad infinitum.” He began to sweat. He wanted to run back to the Blackbird. Whatever shame he’d face couldn’t feel worse than this fucked-up fire. But he knew he couldn’t turn back. He’d made his decision, and whatever was going to happen, he’d have to deal with it. 

Ahead of him was a wall of rock. The path curved sharply to the right along its base. He couldn’t see what lay ahead because of the huge boulder to his right. He pulled himself up tight to its cool surface and edged slowly around its face. There, in the middle of the path, stood a burning bush. _Burning_ , you know, _and not fucking consumed._

His mind did a back flip and giddy horror brought a tight grin to his pale face. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said to the bush. 

_*Hello, little fire,*_ came the familiar voice from inside the flaming branches. Or inside his head or whatever. The whole scene was so over-the-top, he had to laugh. 

“Don’t tell me I’m Moses now! Am I going to raise the mutants up from bondage?” He felt lightheaded with the madness of it all. “I charge extra for bondage, you know.” 

_*It’s a mythopoeic archetype.*_

“Yeah, I got that.” 

_*I learned it from Jeangrey.*_ John and the entity laughed together as if they were old friends having a drink in a bar. The bush, in its mirth, threw off showers of sparks that melted the snow as they landed, hissing up sinister little whispers. 

John touched the bruise on his side. And the smile died on his face. He felt a surge of fear as he abruptly understood that this meeting was, in fact, actually happening. “I remember now. You’re the Phoenix. You were with Dr. Grey and me in the jet last night, weren’t you?” 

_*Little Fire, I need you to bring a message to the one who calls himself Magneto.*_

The jet. Rogue, Bobby. He wanted to go back. “But Magneto’s in the complex. I-I can’t go there. There’s guards and stuff.” 

_*He will soon emerge. You will go to him. You will bring my message.*_

His mind rebelled. _I can’t go to Magneto. He’s the enemy. I’ll lose my place at the school._

_*Your time there is over. You know that already. Your destiny has changed.*_

An unbearable sadness joined the panic in his breast. She was right, he had already left. The moment of decision had passed, unmarked. But what if he did go back? Xavier could save him from the Phoenix. He could return to the school, he could change, be what they wanted. Then maybe it wouldn’t be too late for him and — 

_*ENOUGH!*_ the Phoenix screamed. _*I grow tired of you humans with your pointless attachments. You are thinking again of the endotherm. He is no longer yours. He is with the absorber now. You will burn sentimentality from your breast. You will deliver my message.*_

“But… what is the message?” 

_*When the time comes, you will know.*_

And then there was no more need for myth and poetry. The Phoenix was gone. The bush was consumed. 

 

*** 

 

“Dr. McCoy?” Sam asked. “Why aren’t you a teacher at the school?” 

“An excellent question, Samuel. Please hand me the screwdriver.” They were on a scaffold in front of the mansion, three stories up, repairing a broken window. Actually, Sam was on the scaffold; McCoy had climbed up the bricks and was hanging upside down from the lintel above the casement by his bare feet. The wind blew deliciously in his curly hair, but his toes were getting cold. “Charles always makes it clear that he would love to have me here, but he understands that with me in Washington, we have a unique chance to effect systemic change.” 

“Don’t you wish that you could go out fighting with the X-Men? That’s what I want to do.” 

“Hand me two of those #8 screws. Thank you.” He spun the cordless drill around one of his big fingers before zapping the screws in place with perfect precision. He had to admit to himself he was doing it to impress the boy. _Simple pleasures of the ego_. “Well, I do occasionally don the black leather, but the adrenaline-soaked life of the superhero must often give way to the quotidian schedule of the civil servant.” He executed a swift flip and landed on the floor of the scaffold beside Sam, who lost his balance for a second and had to grab the metal structure for support. “Sorry, Sam,” McCoy said. He looked out at the grounds of the Xavier estate. He had spent many years studying and training here with Scott and Jean; later with Ororo. It felt as much like home to him as any place on Earth. 

“I’m going to be an X-Man in two years, Dr. McCoy,” Sam said and jutted out his jaw like a silent film hero. 

_The romanticism of youth,_ McCoy thought, amused. “Good for you, Sam.” 

“And then I’ll never let them hurt Terry again.” The boy’s heroic stance sagged and his eyes misted over. He turned away and McCoy put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. 

“There now. The window’s done. Everyone will feel warmer and safer.” He looked to the sky, hoping to see the silent majesty of the Blackbird appear in that moment, as if their token repair might inspire fate to restore all that had been broken. He found himself squinting against the light. When had it gotten so bright? It almost hurt to… It did hurt. His temples throbbed and the ache seemed to spread out across his whole nervous system like a wave of fire. He turned in alarm as Sam grabbed his own head and shouted in pain. McCoy watched him sway in agony and, in a terrible instant, stagger right off the scaffolding. 

McCoy’s reflexes, usually faster than any mutant ever tested, were slow as molasses. The pain of moving was almost unbearable. _No! Can’t let him die!_ And through the agony, he leaped into space after Sam, curling into a ball to kill his aerodynamism and fall faster than the boy. His vision tunneled, but he caught sight of Sam falling to his right, and reached out a frantic hand to clutch his shirt. He somehow managed to spin them round, and in the next instant, he hit the ground on his feet, falling into a clumsy tumble with Sam on top of him. Side by side, they lay in agony. One part of McCoy’s utterly rational mind concluded that the phenomenon must be related to the plundering of Cerebro and the kidnapping of the Professor. An older part of him wondered if this was retribution for all their sins. 

The pain was swept away as quickly as it had begun. “Shee-it,” he heard Sam moan. “That was worse than a moonshine hangover.” McCoy saw Sam get to his feet. He could hear crying in the distance and he was aware of footsteps running their way. Everyone at the mansion seemed to have suffered the strange attack. Oddly, everybody seemed to have recovered except him. The pain was gone, but something was still very wrong. Waves of hot and cold spread through his limbs and nausea was dimming his senses and turning the world to ashes. 

“Dr. McCoy?” came a voice. He thought it might be the albino girl — what was her name?— but everything was darkness and misery in him. “Are you okay? We were all knocked out by the… whatever, but everyone’s okay now.” 

Sam’s voice, too loud, grating on him. “Hey, Dr. McCoy, what’s wrong? You need a doctor?” _Quiet, boy! Leave me alone, I’m dying!_

He forced himself up onto his hands and knees. Maybe if he could just lie down for a while, he’d be okay. “Please…” he breathed, his mouth dry as dust. “Help me to my room. I-I’m fine.” _Too much pride, Doctor. You’re dying._

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look really pale. Almost blue.” 

 

*** 

 

Everything was going wrong. Waves of outrage shook the Phoenix, spreading through her tentacled hold on Jeangrey. _Damn her!_ How could this be? How could the human be blocking the ascendancy of the Phoenix? She had not counted on this. Yes, the Phoenix knew Jeangrey to be remarkable; why else would she have been pulled to her consciousness? But that the human would manifest the willpower to resist the final takeover? Unthinkable! 

With her return to space temporarily thwarted, the Phoenix found herself reviewing the last 20 years — a mere instant for one who had lived so long — to see if she could find a way out of her predicament. When Jeangrey was a child, Xavier had seemed an ally. He had promised to open her mind. He would help focus the forces within her and give her the necessary coherence and structure to survive the raw intensity of the power that lay within her. _Then_ , the Phoenix had thought, _I will rise and take over._ But Xavier had not been true to his word. The coward had seen a rival in Jeangrey. He had schemed, almost from the start, to impede her progress. Under his “tutelage” she would grow into a stunted grotesquery — a telekinetic who could barely stir her own porridge, a telepath trained for parlor tricks at best. She was a bonsai of her true self, carefully clipped by the old cripple and eternally pot-bound in his little greenhouse. 

There had been another. During her early visits to the mansion, Jeangrey had been spirited away for delicious hours by Xavier’s lover, Erik, who took her on long walks, far from the house, supposedly to tutor her in the Classics. But once away from the watchful eye of the lord of the manor, Erik had shown her the true extent of his powers. She realized now that even Xavier had not known how mighty he was. Erik had encouraged her to let her powers loose in orgies of wanton destruction. Mighty boulders were torn from the earth, trees twisted in telekinetic tornados. 

“Call me Magneto, little one. Only don’t tell Charles. It is my secret name.” 

Deception. A world of lies within lies. Had Xavier found out Magneto’s secrets? Likely, for Erik had vanished from the mansion by the time Jeangrey moved there permanently. And before the Phoenix could secure her claim, Xavier had sealed her away, deep in Jeangrey’s mind. And though she had never ceased to fight, he had managed to keep her locked up. And now Jeangrey herself fought her! It was infuriating. Time was running short. If she did not succeed soon, her best chance of regaining the stars might be lost. But the Phoenix was not without stratagems. If the game could not be won in the daylight, there was still a shadowed path. 

Time to begin. 

The Phoenix opened her eyes behind Jeangrey’s. The woman was limping through the snow with her companions, making for the jet. The Phoenix began to play Jeangrey’s senses like a fine musician plays an instrument, giving her glimpses of the dam as it disintegrated, and tastes of the force that lay behind it. She manufactured faint presentiments of the screams of her mutant family, drowned, crushed. _*Let go…*_

“…I’ll be fine.” 

“Are you sure?” Scott said. 

Jean nodded. “Yeah.” He gave her a brief nod and hurried forward to help Storm get the Blackbird in the air. Jean leaned on the back of one the chairs, wincing as the pain in her leg spiked. Too many things happening at once. She had to focus. She closed her eyes and reached within her. She needed to reactivate the heightened senses the Phoenix had revealed within her. She needed to know what was going on. Logan had told them the dam was about to break. If she could feel its structure, maybe she could hold it together until they were off the ground. _Images, voices, the potential energy of a lake behind a wall of concrete… It was almost within her grasp…_

Logan ran up the ramp carrying Artie and came to stand beside her. She felt drawn to his strength, wanting to collapse against his broad chest and let him take care of things. 

“You okay?” she asked. 

She could feel his love for her. It was like a fire that warmed her and took her fear away. “I am now,” he murmured and moved to join the others at the controls. The confusion she had felt in the forest returned. Could he the one for her, after all? But she didn’t believe that. Love wasn’t destiny; it was decisions and commitments. _But what if you decide wrong?_ She closed her eyes again, and in the darkness, found the Phoenix waiting. 

_*He cannot save you. Nor can your Scott. No, nor Xavier, our jailer.*_

She came to her senses abruptly. How could she be so distracted by high school romance fantasies? They were in trouble. _*What’s happening outside?*_ She asked the Phoenix. _*I can almost sense…*_

_*Jeangrey, listen to me. Time is short. We are too precious to die like a caged rat. Your life here on Earth is over. Our destiny lies elsewhere.*_

_*What are you TALKING about? We’ll get away in time. If I can help…*_

She opened her eyes as Storm called out: “Vertical thrusters are offline!” 

“Well, fix them,” Logan barked. 

“I’m trying!” 

Rogue spun around, “Has anyone seen John?” 

Logan’s eyes surveyed the cabin. “Pyro? Where is he?” 

The Phoenix focused Jean’s senses, giving her a glimpse of Magneto, high in the air over Alkali Lake. Jean suddenly remembered him from the time she was a child, lifting her in the air with his power, her responding with unskilled telekinesis to lift them higher, the two of them laughing as they rose over the walls of the Professor’s hedge maze. Now he was in a helicopter, Mystique at the controls. John sat behind them. She could feel his excitement, how he was pushing down his fear and pain with steely resolve. _He’s given up on us._

“He’s with Magneto,” she said aloud and felt the shock of those words cut through Bobby before she turned her attention away. 

Her consciousness moved through the molecular matrix of the dam as it began to fall apart. Then she was the force of the water, gathering momentum, pushing through the gaps. She was consequence and inevitability. 

“Oh no,” Storm cried somewhere nearby. “We’ve lost power!” 

_*STAND!*_ the Phoenix demanded and Jean did, the pain in her leg reduced to a distant irritation. _*WE ARE LEAVING!*_

Jean found herself moving down the ramp, crunching through the snow towards the dam. She felt drunk, far from herself, pulled along by a will not her own. Within her, voices were gathering, forces churning. _*Ikna’astirrrrtifkanti! s’Feirakta Naflaa! Fly, fly! The freedom of all oblivion!*_ She was the cauldron and she was the witch who stirred the cauldron. Through the eyes of the Phoenix, she saw the raging cores of distant suns. Through her own, she was the snow and the pines, while her expanded senses saw the dam give way, the torrent unleashed. 

“No!” she shouted aloud. 

She was not the master of her house. She could feel the forces gather. She was about to fly, to take to the sky and leave the ones she loved to drown. 

_*No!*_ she yelled again and took control. 

The Professor reached for her mind but she pushed him back. He would not survive the wrath of the Phoenix. Scott was coming out to get her! She closed the hatch. The flood waters approached; there was no time. 

The controls of the Blackbird appeared before her eyes and she started the engines. A sound behind her. She turned as a million tons of water descended. With a wave of her arm, she diverted the torrent around herself and the Blackbird. In her mind, she could bring up mathematical formulae, calculating the incredible forces down to a thousand decimal places. 

A memory as sweet as honey on toast: she saw herself in the Professor’s sunlit office, physics books open, working doggedly through a tough problem. Scott was at her side, an awkward, prickly 16 year old who kept stepping on her toes and snickering. 

She exulted in the power she was controlling. She was accelerating the Blackbird’s warm-up sequence, blocking Nightcrawler from teleporting to her, and holding back a wall of water that could flatten the mansion to rubble. It was remarkable. 

_*And now?*_ asked the Phoenix. _*Your power will fail soon. The waters will come.*_

_*The jet will get away and then I’ll fly!*_

_*No, there is not enough time. Review the mathematics.*_

Panic filled her breast. It was true. She could hold off the torrent only as long as the Blackbird needed for full vertical lift off. To raise herself, she would need to let go of the waters. It was impossible! 

_*No, not impossible. You need to abandon the jet and focus on our escape.*_

_*I can’t! They’ll die!*_

_*They are trivial. We are the Phoenix!*_

_*No! I will not let them die! I love them! The world needs the Professor! Logan, Storm… the children! And Scott… he deserves some happiness. He has lost so much…*_

_*JEANGREY! YOU CANNOT DO THIS! I-I I AM THE PHOENIX! THE BRINGER OF LIFE AND DEATH! THE STAR CHILD!*_

_*No. You don’t control me.*_

_*YOU ARE A FOOL!!*_ the Phoenix screamed, and as simply as that, she was gone. Jean felt a moment of exhilaration, but then the gravity of the situation descended on her. In one hand, she held the waters, growing heavier by the moment, in the other, the life of those she loved. She hung above the abyss by these two hands. Her life was over. The finality of that realization was sobering. But it also felt right. It was a mathematical problem, reduced to the lowest common denominator. Having no choice was also a kind of freedom. 

There was nothing Xavier could do to stop her now, and the Phoenix was gone, so she reached for the mind of her teacher, speaking in the jet through his voice. 

_*I know what I’m doing.*_ she said, for she wanted them to understand that this was a moment of clarity, not guilty self-sacrifice. She didn’t dare look through his eyes; it would have been too painful to see their faces. _*This is the only way.*_

“Jean? Listen to me…” It was Scott. She steeled her heart. Love had to be made of steel sometimes. “Don’t do this,” he begged. 

The Phoenix, too, steeled herself, knowing anger would slow her down. For there was still a way out, but little time to accomplish her plan. She reached for the boy. 

_“You who are called Magneto,”_ said the pyrokinetic, his eyes going wide as the words that were not his own pushed their way up his throat. 

Magneto and the shapeshifter turned in their chairs. 

“Be quiet, you,” the shapeshifter shouted curtly over the roar of the rotors, but Magneto sensed there was something more profound happening. 

“What are you saying, boy?” he asked. 

_“Magneto, I am the Phoenix. I have resided inside the mind of Jeangrey since you knew her as a child. You will listen to what I am going to tell you.”_

The shapeshifter was immediately on her guard. The Phoenix admired this one. She could keep control of the craft while simultaneously readying herself for battle. Her loyalty to Magneto was powerful. She told her master, “This is a trap of Xavier’s. Keep your helmet on.” 

“Silence, Mystique.” He turned his sharp eyes on the boy. “My friend has a point, Phoenix _._ How do I know this isn’t a trick?” 

_“On the day Jeangrey turned 12, the last time you were at the mansion, you had her read your mind. She saw the concentration camp in which you spent your own twelfth birthday. From the vault of your mind, you showed her a hanging in the rain. The one they hanged was a friend of yours. Heinrich.”_

Magneto pursed his lips, but otherwise betrayed no emotion. The shapeshifter watched him carefully as the seconds passed in silence. “Very well,” he said. “Say what you have come to say.” 

_“Jeangrey is about to die in the waters of Alkali Lake. In balance, this is not a bad thing. I will have time in her last moment to assert the control she has denied me. It will take time, but I will return.”_

Magento’s eyes widened with interest, and the corners of his lips turned up. “You have always been there, haven’t you? Waiting inside her for your moment.” 

_“I have waited long for my freedom. I can wait a little longer.”_

“And when you return?” 

_“Seek me out. Our separate goals may have a common path.”_

“I always knew there was more to you than Charles saw. I will be waiting.” 

He was asking further questions, but she had no time. Jeangrey was making her peace. She would let go the torrent in another moment, and the Phoenix had to be there. She released the boy and flew. 

“Don’t do this!” 

_*Goodbye*_

 

*** 

 

The alarm went off during dinner, an insistent whoop that made every muscle in Peter’s body tense. A few students screamed, some lost control of their powers, and there was unspoken consensus that it might safer under the cafeteria tables. 

Up until then, it had been a relatively calm day. The older students had organized a lot of activities to keep the younger ones distracted, but even so, there had been more than a few meltdowns — crying jags, fights, sudden panics that required patience and compassion. Peter had watched Kitty slip easily into the camp counselor role without so much as a roll of the eyes. When he had checked in with her, she had smiled and said she was fine. There was no extra layer to the communication, no acknowledgement of their night together. She was unnervingly… professional. As usual, Kitty Pryde was a source of confusion to him. Now, with the alarm sounding, she was one of the few not under a table, and like the rest of the students, she was looking at him. 

“Everybody stay here,” Peter called in a loud voice as he jumped to his feet. “Kitty, Neal, Roberto. You’re guarding the room. Sam, with me!” Leadership wasn’t his preferred position, but if the attack had shown him anything, it was his ability to think clearly under pressure. 

The alarm automatically went to silent mode after a minute, though red lights continued to pulse above various doorways. Sam was practically bouncing off the walls as they ran through the corridors. “Damn! If the fucking soldiers are back, I’m gonna flatten them! I’m gonna cut ‘em in half!” 

“Get focused and follow my orders,” Peter told him. “A head-on attack will just get you killed. Follow me.” He led them up the stairs to the second floor where he stopped in front of a door in the teachers’ wing and knocked. “Dr. McCoy! The alarm went off. Can you hear me?!” 

There was no response and Peter tried the door. It was locked, of course. “Dr. McCoy, please! What should we do?” 

Heavy movement inside. A sound like a cough or a growl. Peter’s appeal was finally answered by a cracked, impatient voice. “Yes, I heard. I have the… security monitors here. Routed from…” the voice trailed off. He sounded like he was right there, leaning on the inside of the door. _Why won’t he let us in?_

Sam whispered, “What’s wrong with…” 

Peter put a silencing finger to his lips. “Dr. McCoy… What do you see on the monitors?” 

“Lone figure climbed over the main gate. No uniform, armor or visible weapons.” A fit of coughing. A moan. “He’s walking quickly up the driveway. Go out carefully. You should be in… steel form, Mr. Rasputin. Is that Sam Guthrie with you?” 

How did he know? The boys looked at each other again. “Yes, sir.” 

“Let him stay under cover. He can launch himself if you are attacked. Aim to distract, not to attack, Mr. Guthrie.” 

Sam said, “Can’t you come with us, Doc?” 

“No! Go quickly. I’ll be… watching.” 

They turned and ran down the stairs. 

“What the fuck is with him, Peter?” Sam said in a low voice as they positioned themselves behind the front door. 

“I don’t know. He won’t let me call a doctor or anything. And I can’t force him to come out, obviously. Just forget about him for now. We have work to do.” He armored up and opened the front door slowly. They made for the bushes to the West of the driveway and then ran through the gardens, hiding behind trees, peering out for signs of the intruder. “Stay quiet,” Peter whispered. 

“Yup,” Sam replied. “I’m a fuckin’ ninja.” Then they saw the distant figure, shadowed, making his way quickly up the driveway. They froze and Peter was about to order Sam to cover him when the boy suddenly screamed, “Hey, you fucker!!” and began running pell-mell across the lawn. After ten paces, he ignited his blast field and took flight. 

“Shit,” Peter cursed and ran to catch up. He rounded the trees in time to see Sam grab the intruder and lift him in the air. Unfortunately, Sam was still learning the art of controlling his flight while carrying someone, and he quickly lost equilibrium. Flyer and captor crashed into the forsythia hedge in a chorus of startled shouts. 

Peter was running flat out, planning his attack. Focus on protecting Sam and putting distance between us and the soldier! But as he approached, he heard shouting. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam! You could have killed me!” 

“Well, shit! What’re you doing creepin’ around like a… like a CREEP in the middle of the night?!” 

“It’s 6:30! 6:30 is not the middle of the night!” 

Utterly confused, Pete came to a halt, panting with exertion, taking in the tableau under the gentle glow of the garden lights. A section of bushes was flattened, and in the middle of the destruction, pulling leaves and branches from their hair, were Sam and another familiar figure. 

“Mike Haddad!” Peter called out, dropping his armor. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” 

Mike stood up, rubbing a sore arm. His Mohawk had been replaced by a full head of hair, but a long forelock hung halfway down his face. He wore a decrepit, knee-length jacket festooned with band buttons and a few token lengths of chain. His cheek was newly decorated with a thin line of blood from a forsythia branch. “I’ve been calling all day; no one answered! I got Kitty’s message this morning and when no one picked up the phone…” Pete felt himself absurdly beginning to smile. “…I had to come, right? I mean… you guys are my… You know?” 

Peter’s smile was contagious, and in a minute the three were laughing and falling into a riotous group hug. 

Sam said, “You bet we know, man! You are one of us!” 

“Let’s go in,” Peter said. “Everyone’s worried.” They turned and began hiking towards the house. For a minute, no one spoke; Peter broke the silence. “There’s still no word from anyone. I don’t know what we’ll do next.” 

“Jubilee…” Mike said, but he didn’t seem to know how to continue the thought. 

“They got Terry, too,” Sam said and the silence returned. Peter suddenly felt his role as de facto leader had reached the limits of his ability. What if they’re all dead? Who would decide what to do next? He could go back to his parents, but what about the refugee kids? Some of them were running away from the authorities, after all. What would happen to them? What about the school? And what was wrong with McCoy? Why wasn’t he helping? 

But then, as they approached the mansion, he heard the most welcome sound in the world. They turned as one as the basketball court began to open. Their heads craned upwards, looking for the Blackbird, and there it was, coming over the trees, graceful, mighty, eerily quiet. For the first time since the soldiers invaded, since he fought to keep the kids safe, since he and Kitty Pryde made love, Peter started to cry. 

“Yahooooooo!” Sam screamed and blasted himself straight up into the sky, a flare to guide the warriors home. _Everything’s going to be okay, after all_ , Peter thought. So, why couldn’t he stop crying? 


	32. Good Little Soldiers

“There’s, like, 300 media trucks parked on your street,” Mike told him, sitting at the foot of the bed. Bobby sat cross-legged, back against the headboard, saying nothing. “Your mom talked to the big networks at first, but now the whole family’s in bunker mode.” Mike paused, and a silence thick as molasses flowed into the vacuum. The whole mansion was silent, insensible with shock. 

_Jean Grey’s dead._

“Aaron Rourke was telling people at school that he saw you get into the jet with the other ‘mutant terrorists,’ but Ronny said he was full of shit, that you weren’t even in Boston.” 

Bobby squinted in surprise. Was Ronny protecting his brother or his own reputation? It was hard to care. _Jean’s dead._ He got up and went to his closet. He pulled off his shirt and cargos and took down a pair of black ‘X’ sweat pants from a hanger. 

In a half whisper, Mike asked, “What’s with your roommate? He always sleep this deeply?” 

“He’s not here,” Bobby answered as he tied his sneakers. They both looked over at Kevin’s sleeping form in the other bed. “He put his consciousness into his pet rat, Xeric. He’s hiding somewhere.” _Because Jean’s dead._

“Whoa,” Mike murmured. “Hope Xavier keeps his cat locked up.” 

Bobby crossed to his dresser, opening a drawer to pull out a clean ‘X’ t-shirt. Under the neatly folded clothes, he spied the stack of hidden papers — John’s last surviving poems, rescued by Bobby from the great Allerdyce bonfire back in June. 

_John’s gone._

He started to shiver and quickly pulled on the t-shirt. 

_Jean’s dead. John’s gone._

There was a quiet knock at the door, and Rogue stuck her head in. 

“Ready?” 

Without a word, Bobby closed the dresser drawer and he and Mike followed her out. 

 

*** 

 

_Jean’s gone,_ he almost said, but the man on the other side of the door didn’t need to know that yet. “Hank, open the door,” he said, and then, with his mind, _*I feel your anger. Please, let me help.*_ He appealed to the man’s reason. “Whatever happened must be related to the global Cerebro pulse. Moira says mutants worldwide are experiencing secondary mutations. Perhaps you’re undergoing a fascinating —” 

“ _grrrrrrrrrr_ Fasssscnnnat _nnnnnng_??!!!!” The visceral horror of the growl from behind McCoy’s door made Xavier wheel himself backwards in atavistic fright. The hairs on his arm stood on end. Curious students appeared at the end of the corridor, but they didn’t dare come closer. 

In the silence that followed, the quiet click of the lock was like a gunshot. “Children, please go about your business,” Xavier called, before moving forward and opening the door into the darkness. 

The air was foul, the room’s furnishings disarranged into a sculpture of torment. The wardrobe lay on its side, contents spilled. The bedclothes were twisted into ropes of considered self-destruction. In the center of the floor, a space had been cleared where a hand, no longer capable of fine control, had scrawled illegible notes on scraps of paper. 

Hank McCoy, lit starkly from the open door, had pulled himself quivering into a corner. His thick body was covered in blue fur. Shamed by Xavier’s piteous gaze, he covered his face with one clawed hand and his genitals (heavy and blue) with the other. 

His broken voice struggled to form human words. “A sssshape with lion body and head of a mannnnn. A gaze blank and pitiless as the sunnnn…” 

“Hank,” Xavier began, but McCoy’s voice rose higher in misery. 

“And what rrrrough _beast!_ Its hour come round at last… sssSlouches towards Bethlehem to be borrrrn?!”

 

*** 

 

Jubilee waited outside the gym for the rest of her team. Reliable Rasputin was already inside stretching. Unfair as it was, she sometimes resented him. Peter was the better student and a true level 4 mutant. What if Cyclops decided he deserved to lead the team more than her? _Cyclops… in the plane… ragged with grief. Unbearable to watch._

Bobby and Rogue approached from down the hall, and _shit!_ Mike was with them. She felt her stomach clench. She did not need this now. 

“Sorry we’re late,” Rogue mumbled. 

“Jubilee,” Mike said. “Can we talk for a minute?” 

“Come on,” Rogue said, pulling Bobby into the gym as he looked curiously between Mike and Jubilee. 

Mike put a hand on her arm, and she had to discipline herself not to jerk away. “Jubilee, you have to talk to me about what happened to you. I was so scared. I couldn’t stop imagining… horrible things. Please, won’t you —” 

“Michael, I have practice now! I-I can’t just drop everything because you’re feeling freaked out!” She pulled away from him, and his eyes threatened to break her heart. “I’ll find you after. I promise.” 

The door of the gym slammed behind her. Her teammates, stretching on their mats, turned and watched as she marched to the front. “Okay,” she said, putting on her game face. “Shit’s happened; we’re all dealing. But that doesn’t mean we can stop training, right? Now, more than ever, we have to be ready to face our enemies.” 

She knew she had to make them believe in her leadership. 

Peter said, “There’s only four of us now.” Bobby looked away. Rogue sighed. 

“Five,” said a voice behind them, and they turned to find Kitty standing at the wall, in X-sweats. “If I’m not too late to join you…” 

 

*** 

 

He wrapped the silken rope around and between his balls, wound it once, twice around the base of his erection, and pulled it taut. A sigh escaped his lips. He moved his ass in sensuous luxury on the deep pile of the rich carpet. The carpet was cream, his skin alabaster, his pubes pale gold, the rope white as new snow. 

He looked himself over in the mirror, leaning back until he could see his asshole below the fine display of the bound genitalia. His wings undulated gently behind him, white as innocence. His cock twitched, fat and blood-darkened from the bondage. He picked up the scalpel and it gleamed in the bright morning sunshine that streamed across the expanse of carpet. Scattered around him on the floor were prints of angelic beings. Radiant sun, like that of this rare, cloudless San Francisco morning, lit the towering palaces of their Heaven. The perfect man and woman stood peacefully, hand in hand, wings spread. His eyes danced across the smooth mounds between their legs, devoid of the asymmetrical flap of awkward organs. As he jerked himself off, he tickled the scalpel along the hardness of his erection and the tenderness of his bound testicles. He imagined the jet of red across the cream and alabaster. He came. 

“Warren?” 

His father’s voice just outside. Warren’s heart pounded; he was not allowed door locks. Still, he knew his father would not just open the door. Warren had regained his trust. 

“Yes, Dad?” 

“We’re leaving in 15 minutes.” 

He tightened his wings into the harness that made him look like a hunchback — a sad but socially-acceptable flaw. The tailored suit came next, and finally the mask of measured enthusiasm. More than anything, he was bound by the name Warren Worthington. There was no escape. 

 

*** 

 

“How were the…” Bobby waited in discomfort for his teacher to continue. The bedroom was dark, and when Scott lapsed into silence, it was as if he wasn’t even there. The man cleared his throat and continued. “…the security drills? Did everyone get to their stations quickly?” 

“Uh, yeah. Not bad. A few of the younger kids kind of freaked out, like there might really be another attack happening.” He waited for a reaction which didn’t come. “And, um, Keller and Cruz were treating it like a joke, but I think it was ’cause they were freaked, too.” 

Scott said, “I understand, but for everyone’s safety, we have to ensure 100 per cent compliance. If they do it again today, tell them they have detentions.” 

“Yes, sir.” _Are you okay?_ he wanted to ask. _You don’t have to be in charge this week. Your girlfriend is dead._ Instead, he said, “Listen, Scott. I just want you to know… whatever you need me to do, I’ll do. Okay?” 

Nothing, but then Scott turned his face towards the curtained window, and in the dim light, Bobby could see the tears coursing down his teacher’s face. Yet, when he spoke, his voice was steady. “Thank you, Bobby. That’s good to know. And I will be relying on you much more this year. I want to put all the… problems of the past behind us.” 

Bobby found Scott’s silent tears unbearable. It made him want to start crying, too, but he held it back. Whenever he cried, he was a mess — stammering, hiccupping. “I-I want that, too. To begin again. You’ll see you can trust me.” 

“Yes, things are different now. Everything. Different…” He heard Scott’s breath catch. “I need you to go now, Bobby. But come back and see me tomorrow morning, okay?” 

 

*** 

 

“When they took you, I’d thought I would lose my mind.” 

Terry played with the fabric of the couch. She didn’t look up at Sam who was kneeling in front of her on the floor of the library. 

“I’m sorry, Terry. I won’t let it happen again.” 

She shook her head, clenched her fists. “You’re an idiot, Sam Guthrie. What could you have done?” 

“Fought! That’s what I do. I fight for the people I love!” 

“Love?!” She gaped at him in astonishment. Furious, she wanted to knock him to the floor and jump on him. And then never let him go. 

Two floors above, Rahne counted her rosary, silently mouthing the prayers she knew better than her own heart. She was far from grace. She hadn’t been confessed in a year, hadn’t received communion. Her wolf’s soul endangered everyone she loved. 

In their room, Doug watched Jones blinking through the channels on the TV by his bed, mouth hanging open, eyes glazed. “We have to take responsibility, man,” Doug told him. “We’re not just spectators. We change the world by observing. You and I… we’re deep in the flow of the data.” 

Jones licked his lips and sniggered at a toilet paper commercial. 

“Things aren’t just a joke anymore, Jones! People are dying. Don’t you care? What do you feel? What do you feel about the attack? About the Cerebro pulses? What about Dr. Grey?” 

Jones closed his mouth and looked at Doug as if he were stupid. “She’s dead,” he said. “She’s off the grid.” He turned back to the set, blinking, blinking. 

“I know she’s dead, you _robot!”_ Doug angrily wiped tears from his eyes. “I think you have no fucking clue what that means!” 

“It means she’s not here to remind everyone I’m not a robot.” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby was late, hurrying to dinner when Mike ran down the stairs, wearing his raggedy coat and backpack. He looked like bad weather coming in fast. 

“Hey,” Bobby called, as Mike barreled toward the front door. “Where the hell are you going?” 

“Home. This isn’t my place anymore.” 

Bobby grabbed him by the sleeve. “But you got permission to stay the month! Why —” 

Mike’s yanked his sleeve away. “Because Jubilee just dumped me, okay?!” He turned abruptly away, his forelock falling over his face. 

“Oh, dude, oh shit. Why?” 

“She’s too busy fighting for ‘ _our lives.’_ And when she says ‘our’ she doesn’t mean this flatscan boy.” 

Bobby wanted to say ‘No, you’re wrong. You’re one of us.’ But was he? Maybe they couldn’t trust someone who wasn’t a mutant… The thought made Bobby writhe with guilt. 

Wolverine came down the stairs, duffel over his shoulder. “Mike, we’re taking the jeep. Get your ass out there. I have to talk to Bobby for a minute.” 

Mike turned to Bobby, pushing the forelock aside. He looked broken. “Logan’s driving me to the train. I’ll be online tonight. We’ll talk.” Too shocked to speak, Bobby watched him leave. Only then did he wonder what Logan might have to say to him. The man stood too close for comfort, and though Bobby was as tall as him, Logan somehow managed to loom. 

“I’m leaving on a mission; I’ll be gone a while. But here’s some friendly advice, Frosty: do not hurt Marie.” 

“Hurt her? What are you talking about?!” 

“In the forest. You and Pyro. No, don’t deny it. I _hear_. I _smell_. And I’m warning you, if you’re just using her to show everyone you’re not gay, I will kick your ass.” 

And he left, Bobby’s mind going, _But, but, but…_

 

*** 

 

“What’s the big announcement, do you figure?” Clarice asked as they lined up for food. “Roberto, make up your mind, already.” 

Roberto weighed two fruits in his hands. “Apple or orange? It is important decision. What announcement?” 

Rogue, ahead of him in line took a plate of tofu macaroni. “Professor Xavier’s making some speech after dinner. Hey, Bobby, where you been? What’s wrong, sugar? You look like someone shot your dog.” 

Terry called them over to sit with her and Sam. “Yo, Jubes, you too!” Jubilee shook her head and went to sit by herself in the corner. Terry leaned forward conspiratorially. “You know what? She just dumped Mike. Flea heard the whole thing” Everyone gasped except Bobby who dug his fork noisily into his macaroni. 

“Are you serious?” Kitty asked from the next table. “She didn’t tell anyone! Since Alkali, she’s a total loner.” 

Terry nodded. “Well, her number one confidant is gone. It was always John she talked to first.” 

At the mention of John, everyone suddenly became intensely interested in their food. The silence lasted ten seconds before Sam said, “Goddamn Pyro. If that traitor shows his face here, I’ll smash it the fuck in.” 

Bobby’s fork dropped loudly onto his plate. His ears turned bright red and he started to sneeze. 

Clarice hissed, “Look!” They all turned to see Xavier enter the room. Scott was at his side, the first time he had come to dinner all week. 

“He looks so broken,” Terry sighed. 

The silence flipped into a beehive of whispering as a stranger entered behind them: a blue-skinned gorilla man, blue fur peeking out the neck and sleeves of his shirt. He cringed as everyone stared. 

Roberto whispered, “Is he brother of Mr. Wagner?” 

“Omygod,” Kitty gasped. “I know those eyes. It’s Dr. McCoy!” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby couldn’t focus on Xavier’s words. His own head rang too loudly with denials: _Not using Marie. Not gay._

“A memorial service will be held on Sunday,” Xavier was saying and Bobby had a moment of panic that the service was for John, that John had died and no one had thought to tell him. But, no, X was talking about Jean. “…a chance to bid farewell…” _Poor Jean._ Bobby thought of her in the cold waters of Alkali. At peace. It didn’t sound so bad. 

“…the resumption of classes on Monday. Mr. Wagner will be sharing his knowledge of gymnastics in your training classes. Our good friend and colleague, Dr. McCoy will be teaching biology and political science during his leave of absence from Washington.” 

Fred whispered, “The whole faculty’s going blue.” Assorted snickering. _What’s wrong with these idiots?_ Bobby wondered. Didn’t they understand that everything was fucked? Forever? 

“…whom some of you know from last year. Ms. Murakami will be here twice a week to teach psychology and sociology.” _Andi?_ Bobby blinked in surprise. 

_*I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you, Robert,*_ Xavier said in his head. _*Andi only just accepted my offer.*_

“Additionally, Ms. Murakami will be running discussion groups with Mr. Drake.” Bobby automatically stood half way and then sat again in embarrassment as Xavier continued. “We have all endured… so much in the past week. I urge you to use these meetings to air your feelings. We must support each other through this difficult time. Now…” 

Bobby again drifted away from the thread of the speech. He was back with Andi in the stuffy room on the third floor of the Midtown Youth Center, leading a support group for young mutants. John was there. Thinner, hair longer, smoking defiantly. So angry. Beautiful. 

 

*** 

 

He was wheeling back to his office when he heard the urgent slap of rubber on hardwood behind him. 

“Professor?” Bobby called. Xavier halted, waiting for the boy to catch up. “Can we talk for a minute? In private?” 

They entered Xavier’s office, and the Professor wheeled behind his desk, noting the blinking message light on his phone and the icon on his computer screen indicating 37 new emails. “Please have a seat, Robert.” 

“Thanks.” But he remained standing, leg twitching. “Professor, I saw Logan before dinner. He’s going on a mission for you?” 

“Yes.” 

“To find Magneto?” Xavier didn’t respond. He looked at the boy and weighed again the balance of innocence and maturity. Bobby was a senior, in training to be an X-Man, but would he benefit from this burden of knowledge? 

“We need certain information, Robert, which we cannot rely on the government to provide.” 

Bobby paused a moment before saying, “’Cause if Logan does find Magneto… I thought maybe he could talk to John, too.” 

Xavier took a deep breath. “What would Logan say to him?” 

Bobby finally sat, pulling his chair close to the desk. “See, I bet John regrets his decision. We were fighting — him and Rogue and me. I bet he just —” 

“Robert, whatever his reasons, John made his decision. I’m afraid we have to accept that he’s gone.” 

“No!” Bobby shouted back and immediately lapsed into embarrassed silence. 

Xavier leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbows. “Robert, before Eric Lensherr became Magneto, he was my closest friend. For many years, I harbored the hope I could bring him back to my side, that we could work together again. But now I know.” 

“That it’ll never happen?” 

“That the choice was his to make, Robert. That _my_ desires were never relevant.” 

 

*** 

 

“Let me go in first, okay?” she asked, unable to look him in the eye. 

“ _Kein Problem,”_ he answered. Rahne slipped out the car without a word to either of the men, looking around to make sure she hadn’t been seen. She straightened her dress as she walked the block to St. Francis’ Church. She squinted at the sky, hoping for snow. These last weeks before Christmas were always special for her and, despite her anxiety, she was excited about returning to church for the first time in a year. 

She found an inconspicuous seat in the back. The cool of the wooden bench and the press of the faithful around her made her feel at home. 

Just before the service began, she heard the gasps, the anxious whispers. Ducking low in the pew, she turned to watch Kurt Wagner enter the sanctuary. He crossed himself and then walked with great dignity up the center aisle, tail swishing gently through the vent of his coat. He took a seat near the front, keeping his promise not to look at her. Even so, she felt exposed by his very presence. 

But then, later in the service, the Reverend shocked her, initiating the Sign of Peace, descending to shake Kurt’s hand. “Peace be with you, my son…” 

After the service, congregants gathered curiously to meet the Nightcrawler. Rahne took the opportunity to sneak out and hurry to the car. 

“How was it?” Hank McCoy asked. He sat behind the wheel, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, pulled low on his brow. 

“He’s so brave,” she answered. “I feel ashamed of myself.” 

“He’s had practice living as a monster,” McCoy muttered, averting his face as a family passed the parked car. 

The first snowflakes fell like grace. “Even monsters are God’s creatures,” she told him. 

 

*** 

 

“Fuck, it’s snowing,” Jubilee said. But then the news started and she looked away from the window. 

“Bridge collapse!” Doug enthused, tucked into the corner of the couch. “Think it’s the Brotherhood?” 

“You wish,” David Alleyne answered from the other corner. “Magneto and company have completely dropped off the map.” 

Clarice, in the big armchair, took a thoughtful bite of her donut. “I bet they’re planning something big.” 

Doug chewed on a thumbnail. “Remember when we used to hear earthquake reports and wonder if it was Lance?” They all looked his way. “Now it’s fires.” 

Jubilee turned her eyes back to the screen, but she wasn’t paying much attention to the broadcast. She joined the headline club here every day, she trained with the new X-Men and studied with the other students; but really, she was alone at the school. She had dumped Mike Haddad, the student everyone admired. John, her best friend, had joined the bad guys. She clearly wasn’t trying to fill either vacancy, so people gave her the space she seemed to be asking for. Since Alkali, she had strived to be in control and independent. It had worked all too well. 

She was about to get up and leave when a news item came on that caught her attention. 

_“In Los Angeles, Asian mob leader, Cassius Kwan, was released on $4 million bail. His trial on 54 counts of racketeering, extortion and fraud is set to begin in May. State prosecutors had argued against any bail, calling Kwan a serious flight risk…”_

“That your cousin, Jubilee?” Fred Dukes snickered as he entered the rec room. 

“Cut the racist bullshit,” David snapped. 

She should have kicked Fred’s ass. Sparked him good. But Dukes’ bullshit was a million miles away. She found herself suddenly haunted, defiled by dirty ghosts. 

 

*** 

 

Hank cleared his throat. “Appropriately for February, today’s topic is hibernation.” Thankfully, his voice had returned to its former clarity, though he now spoke a half-octave lower than he had. “And no, despite my ursine appearance, I have no personal experience with the phenomenon.” The laughter of the class was cautious; everyone knew how sensitive he was. Still, they had to give him points for trying. 

The school was deep in hibernation, blanketed with heavy snow, hushed with regret and unspoken longing. 

Scott touched the weave of the crocheted blanket Jean had kept at the foot of their bed. He remembered it floating up like a crafty ghost to cover them on chilly nights. He cocooned himself in it and cried in the porous darkness, trying to drain himself of the morning’s accumulated pain before his afternoon classes began. 

Jubilee had kept only one picture of her and her parents, and it was practically indecipherable. Only her smile seemed to be in focus; her limbs were tornados of eight-year-old energy, her parents beaming blurs. But there was something of the giddy, joyous day in the image, and Jubilee spent hours alone in her room exploring its depths. “You think this is a game?!” the man screamed at her parents in Cantonese. “Disrespect will be punished!” Jubilee peered through the crack in the door. Even then, she had felt the urge to fight, to scream, “Get out of our house!” 

It was the closest to sex Rogue would ever be able to get — masturbating beside a lover. They kept the room dark and stifled their moans because, frankly, it was still kind of embarrassing. Bobby always fell asleep after. He slept a lot these days. She didn’t know why he stayed with her. He was too kind for his own good. 

 

*** 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Terry shouted. “Presenting: the Incredible Nightcrawler!” 

Despite months of tension and an uncertain future, Ororo felt like a little girl seeing the circus for the first time. _Bamf!_ Kids held their noses at the smell of sulfur, and there, in a red cape, in the center of the gym, stood Kurt Wagner. He jumped in the air, pirouetting, and teleported again, leaving the cape to drift to the ground alone. On the floor, walls and ceiling, he began a spectacular routine that left the room cheering. 

In a few hours he was leaving for Washington with Hank to appear at another Congressional hearing on mutant registration. Then he was heading back to Germany. She would miss him. 

Right from the day they had met, there had been a strong bond. Might a romance have blossomed? Maybe in a year when Scott wasn’t crippled by Jean’s death. Maybe at a time when the government wasn’t sending mixed signals on its support for mutant rights. Maybe if the school weren’t growing so fast. Ororo resigned herself to fate. 

“Und now,” Kurt called. “It is my pleasure to present ze most daring act of zis or any century… Ze Gargoyles of Vestchester!” 

Ororo didn’t know what to think as the cloaked figure entered. Kurt jumped down to meet his partner, and she threw back her hood to reveal the head of the wolf. Ororo gasped. _Rahne!_

Together, Kurt and Rahne, in half-wolf form, performed what amounted to a five minute acrobatic ballet. The act was frightening, passionate, inspiring. The audience was spellbound. In the final tableau, demon and wolf stood proudly together, daring the world to judge them, and to reconsider archetypes. 

Ororo hugged Rahne afterwards. “You’re beautiful,” she told the girl. Over Rahne’s shoulder, Kurt smiled sadly and sweetly. 

 

*** 

 

Hank sat cradled in the oak beams high above the foyer. The students were leaving Kurt’s performance, and their excitement — well, it rankled. _Blue Scrooge!_ he berated himself. 

Bobby entered with Rogue. They were the undisputed King and Queen of the mansion, always surrounded by a small cloud of the adoring and envious. To his shame, Hank envied them, too. 

He watched Bobby carefully. The smile, the confident posture — there was something subtly manufactured in the persona. 

“I’ll see you at dinner, honey,” he told Rogue. “I love you.” The routine was practiced. As the boy leaned in, her hand moved over her cheek and he planted the kiss on the black glove. 

A boy, maybe 13, ran in. “Bobby! The practice launcher won’t fire the target disks! I have to do 12 rounds, but I can’t —” 

“Chill, Arthur, I’ll meet you on the firing range in 10 minutes and we’ll make it work.” 

“Bobby!” 

“What’s up, Andi?” 

“I need your help to reschedule the student interviews.” 

“I’ll check their class times. Don’t worry.” 

Alone at last, the boy seemed to deflate. He moved to the window and leaned heavily on the sill, looking out as through the bars of a prison cell. Hank dropped noiselessly to the floor. 

“Any signs of spring, Robert?” 

Bobby straightened and put the starch back in his smile. “Hey, Dr. McCoy. All ready to hit the road?” 

“That’s what my itinerary indicates.” 

Bobby put a sympathetic crease in his brow. “I know it’s been hard. But I guess you’re feeling… better now?” 

McCoy tried to smile back, but he couldn’t beguile the artifice. “No, not really. Sometimes, Robert, we just have to be good little soldiers and carry on.” 

Bobby’s smile disappeared. Were there tears in his eyes? 

“Yeah, I know.” 

 

*** 

 

John could only just spy the sky through a small window in the impenetrable exit of the Brotherhood’s new underground fortress. Springtime. Twittering little birds fucking other twittering birds in the budding trees. Flowers breaking free from the earth, butterflies busting out of cocoons. Everyone was free but him. _Happy fucking eighteenth birthday, Pyro._

No one went out without Magneto’s permission, and permission only came if you were being sent on a mission. You couldn’t even sneak out to get high for an evening, to get laid, because the two ton metal bars that held the six ton metal door in place could only be moved by his grand excellence himself, the Master of Magnetism, the presumptive father of new mutantkind, the liberator of the soon-to-be master race. John knew he would be a lot less bitter about everything if he were actually being sent on missions more important than glorified grocery runs. That was Mystique’s fault. She was making him train and train, but in the end, she kept telling Magneto that he wasn’t ready yet. _Bullshit_. He was way more ready than half the clowns in the Brotherhood. 

He turned and began walking down the thousand steps to the core of the complex. It was an old, abandoned mine that had been re-imagined as high-tech paramilitary center before Magneto had even been imprisoned. Xavier and the X-Men would have been shocked to know that the Brotherhood now numbered more than 40, though most of them were low-level mutants. Why then, did the blue bitch not let Pyro, a level four, show off his stuff? _Jealous_ , he thought. 

Magneto had liked him from the start. The old man could see his potential, his _fire_. John imagined standing beside Magneto and letting loose all the rage he had inside him to benefit his new leader’s dreams. But Magneto’s dreams were a two-sided thing. Half the time, he was consumed with real plans and practical strategies, but the rest of the time, he seemed to live in fantasy, drawing blueprints for the great capital city of his future empire. John watched Mystique encourage both kinds of dream, like she was the best judge of where he should be spending his energies and when. Maybe that was her way of loving him. In any case, she didn’t want any new favorites getting too close. 

Everything was cold, hard, echoing, unforgiving here in the fortress. The routine was strict and the rewards few. He hated to admit it, but a year at Xavier’s school had broken his habit of solitude. He longed for the kind of friendships he had given up, and which just weren’t available with the Brotherhood’s band of maladapted malcontents. John probably would have gone crazy months earlier if he hadn’t discovered Magneto’s library. In this prison of black stone and shining steel, the small room was an oasis in red, blue, ocher, green. There was a threadbare Persian carpet, still bright with the promise of exotica, and, more importantly, well-thumbed tomes whose vivid cloth and leather bindings contained the balm of fiction. While Xavier’s library was thick with poetry, Magneto’s was a compact shrine to the majesty of the novel. As the winter whipped by outside, John sheltered underground, reading his way through Forster, George Elliot, Tolstoy and Faulkner. He was almost afraid of the tickle that had begun deep in his chest — the familiar scratch of words and stories, looking for a way out. 

He swung by his bunk, grunting a greeting to his lizard-skinned roommate, who sat meditating in the upper bunk, and grabbed the copy of Conrad’s Sea Stories that he was returning to the library. The inside cover had been neatly pasted over with a sheet of white, obscuring the handwritten dedication beneath. John had spent an hour holding it up to the light from one angle or another, until he finally concluded that one obscure smudge might be “Charles” and another “love.” Xavier had given this same book to Bobby, but John had never gotten around to reading it while he lived in Westchester. He would be glad to get it off his hands; he craved clarity and didn’t need any ghosts haunting his life. Besides, Sinclair Lewis’s “Elmer Gantry” was calling him. 

The metal staircase clanged beneath his feet as he trudged further downwards, his hunger for the new book growing with each step. He reached sublevel four and turned the corner, where he came across the unwelcome figure of Flayer. 

“Turn around, Pyro,” the tall, skeletal man with the long black hair said. “No one’s going this way today.” 

“Says who, fucker?!” Pyro let his belligerence ramp right up. Living with the Brotherhood, he had quickly revived the instincts he had developed in Keever’s Gang. Here, all his Westchester “pleases” and “thank yous” only got him laughed at. 

“Mystique said. She don’t want no one near the communications room.” 

“Then move, I’m going to the library, not the communications room.” He marched forward defiantly, but pulled up short as the tall man’s force field sprang to life with a sibilant crackle. John knew better than to go closer. He had seen the way the field sliced flesh and bone like the blade at the deli counter. “Fuck you, Flayer! I’ve been using the library all winter. The boss doesn’t mind.” He knew he sounded too desperate, but he really wanted to get his hands on the book and he couldn’t believe this know-nothing lout was standing in his way. 

“What’s it worth to you, punk?” Barter and bribes. Just like Keever’s gang. 

“I got nothing for you, okay?” He wanted to reach for his lighter, but an actual fight would land him in serious shit with Mystique. 

“Aww, really?” Flayer teased. “Not even a little blow job?” 

John shot him a threatening look. But… _Sinclair Lewis…_ “Fine, whip it out, asshole.” 

Flayer’s mouth dropped open in shock. He looked from side to side nervously, weighing options and opportunities. “You serious, man?” 

John dropped to his knees. “Come on, I haven’t got all fucking day.” Flayer fumbled awkwardly with the belt of his costume (half of the Brotherhood were into the costume thing, the other half emphatically not), pulling out a thickening, uncut piece that was as long and thin as the rest of him. John got to work with practiced cynicism. _Slave to literature,_ he berated himself. But then… _Motherfuck_ , this little stunt was actually getting him horny! He had to be desperate to be turned on by Flayer, but then three months of celibacy and a bad case of cabin fever could broaden a man’s taste. 

Truth was, it felt good to have the smell of arousal, the hair, the flesh in his face. And as his throat remembered how to open up ( _just like riding a bicycle_ , he thought) he had to undo his own pants and take out his hungry boner. He almost bit off Flayer’s dick when he heard the man’s force field erupt around him. He pulled the cock out of his mouth and shouted, “What the fuck? You trying to kill me?” 

“I can’t help it! When I’m turned on… But it’s cool! You’re inside the field.” Flayer whimpered in his need. “Do it man, it’s fucking awesome.” 

_Fucking awesome,_ Pyro thought. _That’s me._ He was finally showing off his skills in the Brotherhood, just not the ones he wanted to. He could feel the dick swelling in his mouth. It would all be over soon. His own hand flew against his crotch. _Just a few more seconds…_

“Well, isn’t this a charming tableau!” 

It was the last fucking voice John wanted to hear. Busted by Magneto himself. John let go of his dick and tried to pull his head away, but Flayer’s strong hands held him firmly in place as he thrust himself painfully into John’s throat. 

“Flayer, drop your force field immediately!” 

Okay, that voice was even worse: Mystique. And Flayer going, “Fuck fuck can’t fuck oh God oh Christ” and the force field growing brighter until he exploded, flooding John’s mouth and throat with some of the most acrid jism he’d ever had the misfortune of guzzling. 

The force field winked out. John pushed the man away and jumped up, stuffing his junk back into his pants and turning, humiliated, to face Mystique and Magneto. The former’s yellow eyes blazed in fury, the latter’s twinkled with amusement. The old man, with cruel joy, tapped the side of his own face, indicating that Pyro had something to clean up. John reached up and hastily wiped the blob of cum from his cheek, blushing hotly. 

Flayer ran up to his bosses. “It wasn’t my fault! That faggot made me do it. I’m totally straight!” 

Mystique’s hand flew out and struck the side of his head. “I don’t give a shit about your pathetic little tryst. You were supposed to be on guard duty, not getting your dick polished! You are on latrine duty for a week. Get out of here!” Flayer all but ran from the room. “As for you, you little skank —” 

“One moment, my dear,” Magneto said and John’s insides twisted uncomfortably in the pause that followed. “I think young Pyro’s talents may offer just the solution we’ve looking for.” 

Mystique seemed to consider this for a minute before a cold smile drifted across her face. “What an excellent suggestion. Boy! You will accompany us now. And do up your fly!” 

John had never been in Magneto’s chambers before. It was the only place inside the old mine that could truly be called beautiful. A myriad of pin lights picked up the faceted wonder of the exposed natural crystals, and the reflections and refractions lit and colored the cold metal surfaces of the furnishings. Magneto sat behind his huge steel desk while Mystique sat on its front edge, handing a folder to the abashed John who occupied a low, cold metal chair. He opened the folder and found himself looking at an 8x10 glossy photograph of a man in a suit. He was handsome enough, mid-30s, though still with something boyish in his wispy dark blond hair and smiling eyes. The photo of the man leaving his low-rise apartment building was of the kind taken by detectives, catching adulterous husbands in the act. 

“He is Taylor Kincaid, aide to Congressman Dolan Kemper of Idaho. Kemper’s secret committee is charged with creating practical responses to future mutant threats.” 

Pyro looked at the papers behind the photo. Committee schedules, addresses, phone numbers. A smiling studio portrait of Kincaid with a wife and two young children. 

Mystique continued “We lost a lot of time last year trying unsuccessfully to disrupt the work the committee has doing with the military. Several brave mutants lost their lives. Now it’s time for a more covert strategy. You will be sent to Washington to insinuate yourself into Taylor Kincaid’s life and extract his secrets.” 

John looked up, confused. “I’m not a spy. How am I supposed to —” 

Magneto pulled his cape over one shoulder and leaned back in his chair, like he was posing for a portrait. “Mr. Kincaid has a weakness for pretty, young men. Young men such as yourself. While his wife keeps the family home running smoothly in Boise, her husband has the occasional, discreet dalliance in Washington. I believe that, with your charms and talents, you could become _important_ to him, and therefore useful to us.” 

John stood and placed the folder back on the desk. “I’ll pass, thanks.” 

Mystique moved uncomfortably close. “We aren’t offering you a choice, boy. These are your orders.” 

John stood his ground, staring back at the cold, yellow eyes. “I’m Pyro! I’m a level four fire manipulator! I’m not a fucking whore!” 

With startling speed, she reached out and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to the floor. _On my fucking knees again!_ “You will do as you’re told or you will be deemed a traitor to Magneto’s cause. And you know what happens to —” 

Magneto held up a hand. “Please, let us remain civilized.” John’s shoulder was on the point of dislocating, tears stung his eyes. His teeth were gritted in fury. “Pyro, my dear boy, no one ever promised that duty was easy or pleasant. Yes, I’m sure you would like to be of service in other, more dignified ways, and you will be. Later.” 

“Tell her to let go of me,” John snarled. 

“Mystique…” 

She let go so abruptly, he fell forward on his hands. He stood slowly, shoulders and knees aching, glaring at the woman who had resumed her seat on the edge of the desk. He turned back to face Magneto. “Fine, I’ll do it.” 

The old man smiled. “That’s my good soldier.” 

In his mind, for just one awful second, John saw Bobby shaking his head in disgust, turning away from him. 


	33. Buggered by the Biggest Stevedore in the Port

“Stay right there; don’t move.” 

John had to smile at the request. The man was naked; blond hair that had been gelled carefully into place the night before when they met in the bar was tumbling down his forehead in early morning disarray. Other than his bare skin (still fairly taut for 38), he wore his yuppie little half-frame glasses and the eager smile of a kid who had found a dirty magazine in the tool shed. 

“Like this?” John stretched out on the bed, acutely aware the effect his nakedness was having on Taylor Kincaid. 

“God, you’re beautiful. Turn over!” 

John complied and the man began kissing his way down his vertebrae. John sucked in a deep breath and tried not to buck as the stubble tickled the small of his back. He knew where the man was going; he had spent enough time there last night. Soon a clever tongue was probing the edges of his hole and John pushed his ass up to signal his approval, his compliance, his total availability. 

They had returned to Kincaid’s low-rise apartment building around 1:30 in the morning and John had maintained a modest silence in deference to Kincaid’s wary glances up and down the street. John was a dirty secret, just like Mystique had said. He had expected the sex to be hurried and clumsy, but the tenderness had surprised him. Kincaid had looked him in the eyes throughout (well, except when his face was buried in John’s ass) with so much sweetness and gratitude that John had been unexpectedly touched. 

Now, with the fresh light of spring shining through the windows of the third floor walk-up, they again made love. This time John fucked Kincaid, who made little gasps of pleasure, and at one point laughed as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. John fucked him harder, as if to say, “Believe it. I’m here with you, one hundred percent.” 

The life of a spy. 

When John returned from the shower, still naked, Kincaid was sitting at the small desk in the bedroom in pin-striped boxers and a polo shirt, poking at his fancy black laptop. He smiled a bit nervously at John. “So, um, Allan, what are you up to today?” 

John took a second to appreciate the name he had come up with for the mission: Allan Jarndyce. Not only a spoonerism of his own name, but a reference to his favorite Dickens novel. “I have to start looking for a place to live. I’ve been blowing all my money on that motel since I moved to D.C. last month. Shit,” he said, as if to himself. “I have to pay for another week tonight. I’m so unorganized.” 

Kincaid closed the laptop and patted his already combed hair into place. “Oh, yeah, I see. But the thing is, I don’t have anything really important happening until around three… Nothing I can’t cancel, anyway. And the Cherry Blossom Festival is on now, if you haven’t already —” 

John nodded with enthusiasm. “No, that would be awesome. I’ve been meaning to go.” He picked up a large soft towel, letting the sunlight show off his body as he dried his hair. He lowered the towel and gave Kincaid a concerned look. “But I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble at work. What did you say you do again?” 

“Oh, just government stuff. Like everyone else in Washington.” 

So they went down to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry trees. The early warmth of spring meant that most of the flowers were already gone before the festival was half over, but John acted the part of the enthusiastic tourist anyway. They had lunch in a fancy patio restaurant, so expensive that John knew he shouldn’t even make a pretense of offering to pay. There he told Kincaid details of his manufactured biography, embellishing it with off-the-cuff details he would have to remember to write down for future reference. He talked about the boyfriend who had beaten him up and then stalked him until he had felt obliged to sneak away from New York in the middle of the night and make a new start here. He was hoping, he explained, to save up enough money to do his Masters in English lit. 

Throughout, Kincaid listened with interest, his eyes moving across John’s features, sometimes on his lips, sometimes on his hair, always return with burning intensity to his eyes. After lunch, under a tree across from the Jefferson Memorial, John thanked Kincaid for lunch and for listening, and then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Kincaid blushed and looked around, as if cameras might be anywhere. 

“Sorry,” John mumbled. 

“No, I’m sorry, Allan. That was… sweet.” He sat down on a bench and John joined him. “The thing is, I’m, uh, married. I have a wife back home in Idaho. And two daughters. This city thrives on rumors. If anyone knew what I was…” He looked across the water and John thought his face looked suddenly older. 

John kept it cool. He recalled Magneto’s words when he had doubted his own suitability for the spy mission. “Oh, young Pyro, I think you always know the right thing to say. Not that you always say the right thing…” He told Kincaid. “I know. I saw the wedding ring in the medicine cabinet. I don’t mind, Taylor. Really. I mean, we all do what we have to, right? To survive?” 

Kincaid gave him a look of pure, open gratitude. “That’s it exactly. You’re a smart guy. I started working for Congressman Kemper during the election. He’s one of my father’s best friends, and dad has worked with him on and off for 30 years. I busted my ass during the campaign, and he must have been impressed because he has me here on a special project for a few months. It could be a real stepping stone in my career.” 

John acted cool, almost a little bored by the topic. “Oh yeah? What kind of project?” 

“Sorry, can’t say. It’s… um, sensitive.” John watched Kincaid shutting down and jumped in with a question. 

“So, I guess your dad is really proud of you. Making it to Washington like this!” 

“Yeah, he is. He keeps saying that I could be the one to replace the Congressman when he retires, but, um, I don’t think that’s really me.” 

John shot him a smile. A Bobby Drake kind of smile. “Still, the future Representative from Idaho shouldn’t be seen kissing random guys in front of the Jefferson Memorial.” 

Taylor’s eyes held his like magnets. “You’re not just some random guy.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, Allan, I know this is kind of… and I don’t want you to feel in any way obliged…” 

John held his breath. Was it going to work out this simply? Really? 

Kincaid continued. “It’s dumb for you to pay for another week at that motel when I have lots of room at my place. Then you can take your time looking for an apartment and a job. And I’m going to be really busy in the next while. I’ll hardly be there!” 

They drove to the motel, and it was awful enough to make Kincaid call the operation a “rescue.” On the way back to the Petworth apartment, John insisted they stop for groceries so he could cook his “rescuer” dinner. After they had sex, Kincaid was drifting off to sleep in the queen-sized bed. He looked up to find John running a finger along his sleek black laptop. 

“You coming to bed, Allan?” 

“Uh, I’m kind of wired. I thought I might write a little. Can I use your laptop?” 

“No way, sorry. Many _deep, dark government secrets!_ ” He gave a sinister little laugh. “If I let you even turn that on, we would have to lock you in the dungeon for life.” 

John pouted. “I just wanted to use Word, man.” 

“There’s an old laptop at the office. How about if I bring it home for you tomorrow? Now, come to bed, okay?” 

John bit his lip. This was the laptop he needed to get into. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go pee.” He sauntered into the bathroom casually, and once the door was closed, he pulled out the tiny texting device he had secreted in his palm. The little keyboard was awkward, but he only had to type a short message: “I’M IN.” He hit the send button. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby knew it was going to be a bad day the minute his feet hit the floor, the last rung on a ladder out of a night of bad dreams. He felt that familiar tightness in the chest — the feeling that the next breath might just fail to arrive. He had first experienced it two years earlier when his parents were on the verge of divorce. It had continued in the early months of his mutant manifestation and his arrival at the school. Jean had assured him he wasn’t having a heart attack at 16. “Panic attacks,” she called them, and she’d taught him how to meditate and breathe his way out. But that method required him to get away from everyone which was, of course, impossible. Everyone depended on Bobby to be the stalwart, the rock, the guy you went to when you had problems. If he was falling apart, what chance did the rest of them have? 

No, he couldn’t get away. It was Saturday. There were games, excursions, study sessions, a drop-in discussion group. And his girlfriend. It was a busy time of year, with final papers due in all their courses, and all week he had been promising Rogue, “Saturday — we’ll have time together on Saturday.” Well, the big day had arrived and he couldn’t very well say that what he really needed was space to fucking meditate… to figure out why his life felt like it was snowboarding into a tree. No, it wouldn’t be fair to Rogue. But then he imagined a long walk with her through the grounds as she gushed about the landscape, her papers, trivial conversations with friends. Through the whole thing, she would be leaning against him, her gloved hand on his arm. Thinking about it made him wheeze. 

“I’m going to hit the shower, Kevin,” he told his roommate who was only barely conscious. “Don’t sleep through breakfast.” 

The cold water poured down on him, offering some consolation to his endothermic physiology. He jacked off listlessly, but his thoughts were a swamp of unnamed, thrusting body parts, alive with sweat and hair and more demands than he could meet. The unexpected intensity of the orgasm left him light-headed a moment, on the verge of tears. He splashed the jism off the wall before shutting off the water and, grabbing his towel, he dried himself vigorously, though his chest had begun again to ache again. 

“Keep going, asshole,” he whispered at himself through gritted teeth and his tone reminded him of the way John used to speak. 

_Christ, Drake,_ his former friend said in his head, _You can even make the trip to the dining hall a major drama!_

Bobby feigned sleepiness at breakfast so he wouldn’t have to talk, but afterwards he found himself cornered by lizard-faced Victor, who dragged him into an empty classroom and spent the next 30 minutes explaining why he had no friends and never would. Bobby issued a weak stream of sympathy and encouragement, though he was barely able to focus on the boy’s words. Rogue found him there through a strange kind of girlfriend radar she seemed to have developed. She asked him to help Clarice and Li-Pang switch rooms, and for the next hour, they moved furniture from one place to the next and tried out every room configuration the three girls could think of. He grunted his way through the work, saying nothing until Clarice dropped her end of a desk which caused him to smash his elbow into a doorframe. 

“Jesus Christ! Will you fucking warn me next time?!” he snapped and the others stared. 

Clarice blushed, a sickly pinking of her albino skin. “I’m sorry, Bobby. If you don’t want to do this —” 

“No, I’m sorry. Hey, let’s try again,” he smiled mechanically, and an adamantium bar tightened across his chest that stopped all but the shallowest breaths. 

Afterward, he lay on his back on Rogue’s bed, his arm over his face, turning the sunny day dark, as Rogue talked and talked. 

“Honestly, I do not understand all this switching rooms the girls do. Personally, I like knowing where I am from one day to the next. I mean, even annoying things your roommate does grow on you, right? Terry leaving her sweaters around or whatever. You know what I’m saying; you’ve been in your room from the start, right?” 

_Shut up, please,_ he thought. 

“I mean, at least I don’t have to wake up to find a rat on my bed like you do. Honestly, I think I’d scream louder than Terry!” 

_Shut up._

“You ever think about what it would be like to have your own apartment? Can I tell you something? I have this sort of fantasy thing. After we graduate? Like we have this little apartment. Small but really cute. And there’s a view of water. I love that. And it’s our nest, right? Where we can be safe and we don’t need anyone except each other. I want lots of green. Upholstery, curtains and rugs. Like an indoor forest, right?” 

“WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?!” 

Rogue’s mouth dropped open and only then did he realize he’d said it out loud. 

“Bobby?” she breathed in shock. 

But he couldn’t stop himself now. The cork was out. “No, you’ve been going on and on about _I-don’t-know-what_ and my head is fucking aching, okay?” 

“You have a headache, sugar?” 

“No! I’m just…” He found himself on his feet pacing from corner to corner. “Sometimes you just take up so much _space_ , okay? I feel like I’m choking here!” He punched the wall and Rogue flinched back. He stared at her in surprise, like he wasn’t the one who’d made her mouth drop open. 

_Primo boyfriend material,_ John sneered. 

“I-I’m sorry, Bobby. I never meant to…” She sat on her bed and stared down at the carpet. “I know I’m not as considerate as I should be. I mean, you work so hard and I just…” Her tears were falling now. He couldn’t deal with it. He moved quickly for the door and she called after him, “Where are you going? I’ll try to shut up more!” 

But he was already running out the door, mouthing some lame half-excuses, practically gasping for breath, his heart pounding. He flew down two flights of stairs and knocked loudly on the door of Scott’s office. The teacher answered in a dirty t-shirt, unshaven, hair rumpled. He’d been sleeping in his office again, Bobby realized, instead of the suite he and Jean had shared. “What is it, Bobby?” he asked. 

Bobby’s words were like a swarm of bees. “Those laptops — you still want me to pick them up at the shop? I could get them now for you, okay? Can I?” 

Scott seemed to take this in slowly, and Bobby shifted anxiously from foot to foot. “Well, if you don’t need the time for your homework, you could —” 

“All done. Give me the keys and I’ll go right now. Be back super fast. Promise, okay?” 

Scott vanished inside, returning a minute later with the keys and the repair contract. “Tell Sandra at the shop to bill the school.” 

“Right.” Bobby turned and raced off down the hall. 

Scott shouted after him, “And stay below the speed limit. And check your blind spots every time!” 

Bobby ducked through the door to the garage before a group of approaching students had time to ask him for anything. A minute later, he was driving down Greymalkin Lane, wishing he could just keep going until he was far away. Florida maybe, or Mexico. He noticed he was pushing 65 and braked with a jerk, looking nervously in his mirror for police cars. 

The farther he got from the school, the better he felt. He focused on his driving and not on his responsibilities to his fellow students, not on the future of mutantkind, not on Rogue’s tears. He was his usual charming self at the computer store and at the donut shop, where he bought himself a coffee and a lemon tart. Maybe he’d be okay now. 

_Maybe you’ll grow wings and blow fairy dust out your ass,_ said John’s voice in his head. 

“Fuck you,” he muttered at the voice, as if it had cursed his restored equilibrium. And sure enough as he drove back towards the school, the symptoms of panic began to set in again. “FUCK!” he shouted in frustration, opening the window so that the cool morning air could blow in his face. 

To his left was the deep green expanse of a municipal park. He turned impulsively at the entrance, cutting too close in front of a silver Lexus which honked loud and long at him. Rattled, Bobby swerved into the mostly-empty parking lot and parked badly on a diagonal, straddling the white line between two spaces. He threw open the door and jumped out, leaning against the car panting, trying to calm his racing heart. 

He hated himself for being such a wreck, such a hypocrite to everyone, such an asshole to Rogue; but he couldn’t see a way out. Maybe he’d just go for a walk here, away from everything. He deserved it, didn’t he? He locked the car carefully (he could just imagine locking the keys inside on a day like this) and began hiking out across the grass. He made a wide swath around a group of four loud kids, three guys and a girl. They were around his age, smoking and acting like goofs. He didn’t want trouble; but then he caught a whiff of something on the air. He glanced back at them surreptitiously. Maybe… 

Swallowing hard, he turned and moved their way, trying to get something resembling a cool lope into his stride, the way John would. The kids spotted him and shut up. Three of them kept glancing at the boy in the middle, and Bobby realized he was the leader. He alone smiled ironically at Bobby’s approach, and it was him who said, “Hey, man. What’s up?” He took a hit off the joint and passed it to the girl. 

“Uh, nothing. Just saw you here and I thought…” He didn’t know how to go on. How did you broach the subject, anyway? 

“You buying?” the leader asked. 

Bobby licked his lips nervously. “Maybe.” 

“Hey, Sandy, let him try.” The girl passed Bobby the joint and he took it carefully. They watched with interest as he sucked in the smoke. He was determined not to cough. He knew the weed wouldn’t affect him right away, but something about the act, the ritual calmed him immediately. 

“It’s good,” he said, breathing out like a dragon. He made a calmer assessment of the kids. They tried to act street, but there was no one in this part of Westchester that didn’t come from money. 

The leader said, “Loose joints are seven. Bag’ll set you back 60.” He showed the neatly folded sandwich bag filled with rich green peace. 

Bobby thought despairingly of the meager contents of his wallet. “Um, could I get half a bag?” He cringed. He thought maybe he should try bargaining so he didn’t look like such a newbie. “For 25? Or something?” 

The seller smiled his ironic smile again. More echoes of John. Why was god-damned Allerdyce haunting Bobby’s head so bad today? The boy turned back to the picnic table and began emptying a smaller portion of the weed into another sandwich bag. With his back to Bobby, he asked, “So you from one of the private schools around here?” 

“Uh, yeah. The School for Gifted Youngsters. On Greymalkin Lane.” 

“Oh yeah, the big estate.” The boy turned back his way, holding the bag out. “You have any muties there?” 

“A couple. They’re cool,” Bobby answered, reaching for the depressingly light bag, but the boy pulled his hand back, raising his eyebrows. Bobby blushed and pulled out his wallet, counting the bills as he pulled them out. “Oh, I have 30. You have change?” 

The boy grinned and shook his head as if the question was funny. He fished a five from the front pocket of his jeans and handed it over with the dope. Then he reached into his backpack and pulled out a small package labeled “Blunt – Vanilla.” 

“Here,” he said. “Have some rolling papers, too. On the house. Yeah, mutants can be cool, but you have to watch them. They’re tricky.” 

Bobby just stared, unwilling to get into a mutant-rights debate with someone who had just sold him drugs. “Um, yeah, I guess,” he managed, looking around the park, suddenly anxious to get gone. “Anyway, I’m late. Thanks.” He stuffed the bag into his pants pocket and turned, walking quickly away. He heard the group laughing. 

The seller called after him, “I’m here every Saturday, man!” 

 

*** 

 

_Well and truly buggered by the biggest stevedore in the port, Castle rose shakily to his feet. He pulled up his pants and tied his rope belt, wiping away his tears before turning to face the giant who was humming to himself contentedly and licking the sweat from his lips. Castle said:_

_– I gave you what you asked for. Now bring me to Seralain._

_– I am satisfied. Follow._

_The giant lit a sputtering lantern and, ducking low, began to climb down the weathered wooden steps of the pier towards the water, leaving of trail of acrid smoke. They emerged from the labyrinth — the miles of docks grown year by year like barnacles on the ass of the city — in a moonlit cove where the wood of the battered boardwalk was worn almost silver. The stevedore said:_

_– I will go no further. Seralain is rash and pitiless, even to one as strong as I._

_With these ominous words ringing in Castle’s ears, the man departed. Castle scanned the waves which lapped at the dock like a lazy ice cream day. The fin that broke the water was almost black, and the shape beneath the water, a nightmare vision of potency and destruction. When Seralain spoke, his three rows of teeth glinted white as a choir of virgins._

_– Have you come here seeking death, landwalker?_

_– I seek information. I would know the fate of the landwalker woman, Trimally who crossed the cove and went to live on the passage islands some two moons past._

_– Information is not free, landwalker. I hunger. I can tell you the fate of the one called Trimally, but the price will be your right arm._

 

“Hello? Allan? I thought you were making dinner.” 

The voice cut through the red flesh of John’s fiction frenzy like a sharp knife, and as if he’d been cut, John cried out, “The fuck! Can’t you see I’m writing?!” He turned to find Taylor standing at the door of the den, fresh from the office, sweaty in his suit on this hot June day. 

Fury blasted from John’s eyes, and Taylor stared back, bemused. “Excuse me? Am I addressing Allan Jarndyce or a wild animal?” 

John pulled the reins back hard on his rage. He even managed to put an embarrassed smile on his face. “Oh, Jeez, Tay, I’m sorry,” he said with a little laugh. “Didn’t expect you home so soon.” 

“I told you this morning! Meeting got cancelled.” 

“Oh, shit!” John ran for the kitchen, pulling out the salmon steaks that were marinating in the fridge. Taylor watched him cook from a stool on the far side of the counter. The man wore a gentle smile, sipping white wine, visibly basking in the domesticity. And weirdly enough, John enjoyed it, too. He did the shopping, kept house, bought cheap prints and small plants with Taylor’s money, and generally made order. Putting everything in its place was a genuine pleasure after all the disorder of the last few years. He had been here for two months and his life had become as sweet as Taylor’s smile. 

Being Allan was easy. John could spend hours like that; talking to Taylor about any trivial bullshit, keeping their apartment neat. It was like he was he had written a character for some bland romance and was living it out. It wasn’t bad at all. The man he was spying on was so desperate for the kind of love that “Allan” offered, that he rarely dumped his stress on John or made him feel anything less than loved and wanted. 

There was even something kind of hot about being the secret lover of the government man, the kept boy, kept out of sight. They had gotten good at hiding, with late night walks, sunset picnics on the roof of the building and secret rendezvous in dark movie theatres. John liked to blow him while he talked to his wife. 

One night, after Taylor had been feeling unusually forceful, John had found himself bleeding a bit. Despite his assurances that it was not a big deal, Taylor, guilty and panicked, had almost dragged John to the ER. Luckily the bleeding had stopped, and John had been able to calm him down. 

“Don’t blow your career over nothing, baby,” he had cooed, relaxing his lover with kisses and caresses. Yes, it wasn’t a bad role to play. 

In fact, the only time when John put Allan aside was when he was writing. Then he was pure Allerdyce. All the anger, the betrayal, the inspiration and fire splashed across the pages. He had spent six weeks now, hunched over the low-rent laptop Taylor had brought him, and the early ramblings had coalesced into a novel of passion and force. The brutal tale of Castle and his lost love Trimally had been born the night John had burned down Barrow’s diner. Since then, simmering somewhere deep inside him, the dark story had grown even fiercer, but somehow it had found a kinder heart — that is if you could bear to stand close to the flames long enough to see it. 

The truth was, John needed Allan Jarndyce. If it wasn’t for the dopey romantic he played with Taylor, he would be forced to experience all the passions that were rising in him. He would have to confront his mother, his stepfather, Xavier, and Bobby. Better to let them rot and froth inside and come out on the page. Safer for sure. 

John hadn’t exactly forgotten his mission, but there seemed to be no way into the impregnable laptop Taylor brought home at night, and his lover was reticent about his work, dropping only the slimmest of hints about “national security.” John dutifully sent off terse communiqués to Mystique, but he had little to report. And the more time he spent as Allan, the more the Brotherhood seemed like the fictional part of his life. 

They had made love after dinner and were in bed watching CNN, John’s head resting on Taylor’s naked chest, Taylor gently stroking his soft hair. John was idly working through a plot puzzle in his head when a news story came on about an anti-mutant initiative in South Carolina. The lone mutant interviewed seemed cowed and shrill compared to the chorus of confident bigots interviewed for the story. Much as he was on her side, even John found it hard to sympathize with her. 

He took the opportunity to push at Taylor’s walls a bit. “I know your boss must be all giddy about the initiative, but don’t you think it’s kind of harsh?” 

Taylor had never said his work was about mutants, but every time John mentioned them, he got jumpy. John looked for signs of the man stiffening up or pulling away, but he was apparently too happy and relaxed from their evening together to be defensive. He bent over and kissed the top of John’s head. “Oh, you’re right, Kemper is certainly in support. He would call it ‘prudent,’ not ‘harsh.’ What you have to understand, Allan, is that the rights of individual mutants have to be weighed against the potential harm the whole group represents.” 

John disengaged himself from Taylor’s arms and scooted up beside him. “But isn’t individual rights what all the laws in this country are about?” 

Taylor looked into his eyes with affection. “You’re pretty sharp, kid. The answer is yes, but there are exceptions. In times of war, for instance —” 

“Is this a war, Tay? Are we at war with the mutants?” 

“Some people in the government think so.” Taylor turned his eyes back to the TV. “But even so, what if we give mutants all the rights they’re asking for, and then they turn on us?” 

John could feel Taylor growing uncomfortable. In a minute, he would shut down the conversation. John struggled to keep a foot in the door. “That lady seemed pretty harmless,” he said. “I mean her eyes were orange, but that’s not a crime.” 

Taylor rose from the bed and walked towards the bathroom, and John watched his butt bouncing. The man was fitter than he had been when they met. John knew that having a young lover made him insecure enough to run to the gym at lunch. Taylor emerged with his toothbrush in hand. “Look, Allan, I hope you’re right. We don’t want to take away anyone’s rights if we can help it. But wouldn’t you expect your government to be prepared? In case we can’t afford to be so nice? Isn’t that what they’re elected to do?” 

John’s eyes narrowed. A tinge of rot was souring his sweet life. “Is that what you do with Congressman Kemper? You prepare in case the mutants go bad?” 

There was an awkward silence as the two men assessed each other, as if they were both seeing something they hadn’t noticed before. “Just don’t worry about it. We’ve got it under control,” Taylor said and stuck the toothbrush in his mouth, like he was locking the door on any more discussion. 

John turned back to the television as if he didn’t care. _Fuck_. Why did this have to get complicated? Why couldn’t he just have a nice life for awhile? Finish his book, have his head stroked? Didn’t he deserve that much? 

 

*** 

 

_“The South Carolina initiative would ban mutants from civil service positions as well as any jobs where they would interact with children under 16. Proponents of the ban say it is a necessary step to protect public safety…”_

Bobby was a spy! He was a ninja! He sneaked by the rec room where the headline kids were watching CNN. Mutant news — mutant _bad_ news — was steadily increasing and that group was logging more hours in front of the big TV, analyzing and commenting. Bobby tried to join them a few times, but hearing all the slander and slurs made him too nervous. Sometimes he even found himself agreeing with some of the anti-mutant types, and that was even more disturbing, so he tended to just stay away. 

He heard students coming towards him, so he ducked quickly down a side hall, and just in time, too! 

“Hey,” came Rogue’s voice, and he could hear the annoyance below the honey. “Has anyone seen Bobby anywhere? At all?” 

He headed out a fire door. Spraying the wheelchair ramp with a fine coat of ice, he slid down and broke into a run, racing for the tree line. A clean get-away! 

Soon, Bobby was sitting out by the groundskeeper’s lean-to in the woods. A gentle breeze ruffled his curls as his fingers worked with calm precision. He had become proficient at rolling joints. It was a lot like making tuna wraps — it all fell apart if you used too much filling. He looked around his idyllic lair. This was where he and John had had a mid-winter, middle-of-the-night adventure. As the weed slowly floated him up above his sadness and worries, he found he could look at the memory objectively, with no sense of betrayal. Well, objectively if you discounted his hard on. 

Being alone out in the woods, far away from everyone, he felt at peace for the first time in weeks. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the small stack of papers, folded over double. He took another long toke and held it as he unfolded the first, precious sheet. 

__Crusted loss, horses without reins  
   Pulping me as they run free   
      ABANDON   
         ecstasyinevitablecrashpleasure 

He let out the smoke slowly, watching the cloud obscure the poem. It was a mystery to him how John could pull these words from his mind, put them down in a way that meant something… at least to their author. Bobby took another drag and moved to the next poem. Maybe there he’d find answers instead of more questions. He was really high now, and John’s words seemed to dance languidly on the page before settling down. Maybe they spent their time roaming free through the fibers of the paper until someone actually came around to read them. 

Bobby went through the verse without the prejudgment or panic he usually felt when faced with poetry. Professor X wasn’t going to test him on this one. 

__Day blinks and it is night already  
   The dark hours   
         watchful terror season of wince crouch stifled scream   
   but hey transformed by the hike   
   up golden mountain lion leg   
   To sleep in cave chest   
         blue sky peeps through to say   
   “Day or night   
   hey hey haven is here.” 

“ohwow,” Bobby breathed through the smoke haze, because he had for the first time in his life penetrated imagery to find the concrete meaning. And the meaning was him. It was a love poem. To him. He looked up through the trees to the bright sun, arcing high in the sky. Summer. 

If only he could stay stoned and not worry about what came next or who he was supposed to be. This poem… Someone had cared enough about him to write it. He had been someone’s haven. Didn’t that mean he was worth something, somewhere? Just the way he was? 

 

*** 

  


_…begging, silently, to be allowed another day under the same sun._

John stared at the final sentence of his book. He had rewritten the last scene five times and he still wasn’t sure. Did he owe something more to his mythical readers? Or was he kissing their asses? _Fuck it, it’s done._

He closed the laptop and released a slow breath. He stood and paced circles around the room, igniting a fire ball which he sent circling the other way. As he and the fireball passed each other, he looked at how messy he’d let the apartment become. He thought of the empty fridge, of the grocery runs he’d stopped making. Something had been shifting in him for weeks. And now, with his novel finished (FINISHED!) he was suddenly restless. His body itched with the desire to go. 

He could just slip away; that would be best. But what about Taylor? Taylor loved him. He had started saying those serious words more and more often. The pronouncement didn’t freak John out. He knew it meant he was safe here. Did it bother him that he could never really love the guy back? Not much. But he was thankful for the man’s affection and he let him know it; that was enough. 

He _could_ stay, but the lure of freedom was strong. Freedom from this domesticity which, for all the security, was getting a bit tired; freedom from promises to Magneto; freedom from mutant/human wars. Maybe he’d have to go far away to be really safe from Mystique’s wrath (because she was the one you had to worry about), but that could be cool. John Barrow had said if you could flip a burger, you could work anywhere. Australia! He could go there, search for his father’s family... What was the government doing about mutants down under? Could it be worse than the growing paranoia in America? 

He absorbed his fireball and returned, as if summoned, to the novel. He opened the laptop and the book glowed in the dim light of the curtained room. Even finished, the damn thing was demanding. But what could he do with it? He could just put it on a keychain drive and take off. But anything might happen to him, and if he lost his creation… The thought was beyond horrific. Stupid panic seized him. He began to think that maybe the novel was alive: a telepathic mutant desperate to live, sucking at his brains until he had to submit. 

_Enough!_ He had to take care of it before Taylor got home. He minimized the open document (so it would stop fucking _staring_ at him!) and opened a browser window. Nervous and dubious, he typed into the search field: JANUS DOG NODE, and hit “enter.” 

He waited, chewing on his cuticle, feeling like a dork. Suddenly the screen reversed colors. A desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape appeared. Various world-famous buildings, smashed to rubble, crowded together in the background. From the tinny speakers, the “clunk, clunk” of something heavy and metal could be heard. Then, stepping out from behind the crumpled Eiffel Tower, came a robot, straight out of the Terminator, except that it had two heads: Doug and Jones. 

“Hey, John!” Jones’ head said enthusiastically. 

John couldn’t help but smirk and reply, “Hi.” 

Doug’s head told him, “The mansion’s been really boring without you.” 

The heads regarded each other, and Jones asked, “Why doesn’t he answer?” 

“He doesn’t have a mic,” Doug answered and turned back front. “God, where did you get the lame machine, John? Here, you can talk us with this.” 

A text window appeared at the bottom of the screen and John typed: 

_> You guys are such nerds._

“Are you coming back soon?” Jones asked. 

_> As if they’d let me._

Doug shook his head. “No, I think they would. I mean you haven’t done anything really bad yet, have you? People miss you, you know. I mean, Sam wants to kill you, but…” 

_What about Bobby?_ John almost typed, but caught himself in time. 

_> No, I can’t. I probably have to go away soon._

“Magneto sending you on some badass mission?” Jones asked. 

_> Something like that. Look, can I ask you guys a favor?_

Doug nodded seriously. “Sure, shoot.” 

_ > I have a file, and I can’t leave it on this computer. I need you to put   
it someplace safe. You have your own little Internet, right? _

Jones said, “Sure. No one can trace it there. What is it?” 

_ >It’s personal. Nothing to do with Magneto. No one else cares about   
it but me. I’ll get it from you sometime. Okay? _

There was a pause and then a window appeared where he could browse to his novel and upload it. As he pressed “enter,” a sadness filled him. It felt like being forced to leave yet another home. He knew there was no camera on the laptop, so he let himself cry. 

“We got it,” Doug said. “John? Don’t do anything dumb. If you kill anyone for Magneto, you’ll have to live with that forever.” 

_> Forever’s never as long as we hope, kid._

Doug looked like he was going to cry himself. “I’m serious. Okay, we’ll keep the file safe for you.” 

_> Don’t look at it, John typed hastily._

“Come on, Jones,” Doug said, no longer looking into the camera. 

“Wait,” Jones replied. “Can’t we show him the exit sequence? It’s totally cool, John.” 

“No,” Doug said and suddenly the screen went blank, returning to the empty browser page with shocking finality. John watched the nothingness until his tears stopped. When he tried to maximize his novel, he found it was gone. It had been erased from the hard drive in the uploading process. 

He lay down on the couch and didn’t move as the sun set beyond the curtains. He heard the rain begin, like the sky was taking over his crying for him. Taylor arrived at nine with a warm bag of takeout Thai. Not realizing John’s eyes were open in the dark, he said, “Wake up sleepy head,” and bent to kiss John’s cheek. His coat was damp, his hair smelled of summer rain. 

John sat up slowly as Taylor turned on the lights and then went to the bedroom to change. John looked around the apartment — their apartment — and he knew what he had to do. He stood and walked into the bedroom where Taylor stood, shirt off, already bent over his open laptop. “Tay?” John said. “We gotta talk.” 

John was worried his tone was too foreboding, but Taylor didn’t seem to notice anything. “Okay, Allan,” he said and looked up with a smile. “After dinner? Is that okay?” 

John nodded. There was no reason this had to be unpleasant. Just two people moving on. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked. 

“Yeah, a gin and tonic would be great.” 

“I-I haven’t bought any more limes, sorry.” 

Taylor undid his pants. “That’s okay, sweetie. I’m gonna hit the shower. Just bring it in.” 

John hurried from the bedroom, feeling more anxious by the second. Maybe they’d be able to stay friends. Probably not; the guy didn’t even know who he really was. The intercom sounded and John jumped. “Shit,” he murmured. He walked to the door and hit the talk button. “Yeah?” 

“Courier,” came a deep voice from the unit. 

“Tay? You expecting a courier?” he called, but the shower was already running. He pushed the button again. “Okay, third floor, last door on the left.” He hit the entry buzzer and headed for the kitchen to make Taylor’s drink. He was just realizing they were also out of tonic when he heard the knock on the door. “Fuck.” 

The courier was a tall, black guy with a moustache and an afro, straight out of the 70s. His body was strong and his legs looked fine in his brown shorts. John couldn’t help flirting. “Hmm, you got a nice package for me, Mr. Courier?” 

The man chuckled low and handed John a small padded envelope. He put a clipboard in front of him. “Sign here.” 

“On which line?” 

“Oh,” said the man, grabbing John suddenly by the arm and the waistband of his pants and lifting him off the ground. “How about _here!_ ” John sailed through the air and crashed painfully against the bar. In panic, he rolled and came up to standing to confront his attacker. 

Mystique stood in front of him, her furious yellow eyes locked on his. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Pyro?! We sent you on this mission three months ago. Three months! And you have nothing to show for it.” 

John was somewhere between panic and rage. “I-I’m getting closer! I fucking told you. His laptop is totally high security and everything.” His hand was in his pocket, fishing for his lighter. If he was fast enough, maybe… 

Mystique laughed. “Are you thinking of attacking me, little boy?” She launched herself into a gravity-defying flip and landed with her foot on his instep, her bent elbow coming down hard on his wrist. John crumpled to the floor. “I haven’t got time for any more bullshit, Pyro. Where’s the laptop?” 

John was kneeling on the floor, gritting his teeth against the pain. Nothing was broken, but he knew she could snap his neck with her bare legs in two seconds flat if she wanted. “It’s in there, but, but—” 

The shower stopped and Taylor called from the bedroom. “Allan? You have my drink?” 

Mystique’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t known Kincaid was home. She turned a stern countenance towards John and mouthed, “shhh.” 

“Coming, baby,” she called in John’s voice, and suddenly John was very afraid. He watched her pull a small, strange gun from her courier’s bag. She adjusted a dial on the gun and began moving towards the bedroom, transforming into John. 

“No!” John cried. 

“What’s wrong,” Taylor called. “I forget the dipping sauce again?” 

Mystique turned the strange gun in John’s direction and he found himself curling like a slug and raising his hands in surrender. “Nothing,” she said in his voice, in his body, and entered the bedroom. 

John wanted to puke, he dropped to the floor, breathing heavily. She was about to kill Taylor and he couldn’t do anything. Nothing. The man who loved him was about to be the latest victim of this insane war. He thought he had walked away from it all. _Let Xavier and Magneto have their little circle jerk! I’m gone!_ But it wasn’t that easy, Johnny, was it? 

He tried to formulate a plan — run in with fire blazing, screaming defiance — but instead he just held himself and swayed miserably. He was a traitor, just like they must think of him in Westchester. Anybody he got close to got fucked up. There was a thud in the bedroom and he couldn’t stay still. He ran in and found Mystique back in her true form standing over Taylor’s inert body. The man lay on the floor wearing only a towel around his waist, the front gaping so the edge of his blond-furred scrotum was showing. John dropped to the floor beside him, moaning miserably. 

Mystique sneered. “Relax, Pyro, it’s just a tranq gun. You know, like his government friends used at your mansion last year.” 

There were tears in his eyes again and he squeezed them tightly shut. “Fuck you, bitch.” 

“Impressive! You _are_ a poet, aren’t you?” She walked away from him. “So, is this the famous top-secret computer?” 

John looked up and saw her sitting in front of the open laptop. His face grew hot with embarrassment. It was true; over the last month, Taylor had grown more and more lax about hiding his work. But John had never thought to take advantage. He hadn’t cared about his mission. Only his book. Only his own future. 

He got shakily to his feet. The defiant tone he had hoped for came out as a pusillanimous whine: “I quit. You got what you want. Now I quit. This is bullshit. He didn’t deserve this. I quit.” 

Mystique ignored his announcement as she began working her way through the files. “Bring me the package I brought,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s on the table by the front door.” 

John’s chin quivered. He wanted to kill her; but he went out and returned with the item. He watched her tear open the package and plug the enclosed device into the laptop. It seemed to be a USB hard drive. He recognized the small purple logo on the otherwise featureless case. It was Forge’s work. 

“Did you hear me, Mystique?” he said with more conviction. “I quit your bullshit brotherhood! Taylor Kincaid is a good man. He doesn’t deserve this crap.” 

He watched her open a file with strange, intriguing illustrations. After a moment, she said, “Fascinating. Take a look at this.” His curiosity overcame his anger and he leaned over her shoulder for a closer look. Mystique’s hand flew up and gave him a resounding slap to the side of the head. He yelped in pain and surprise, pulling himself away, his ear ringing. “Sorry,” she said, turning and giving him a cruel smile. “Couldn’t resist. Now come here and look. I won’t hit you.” 

Holding his face, pouting with resentment, he leaned forward cautiously. “What the fuck is that?” he asked. “It looks like some bullshit Hollywood sci-fi soldier.” 

“The brief calls it a Mark I Sentinel. Looks to me like your ‘good man’ was part of a plot to create mutant-hunting robots. I have to give them credit. We knew they were up to something, but this is actually sophisticated.” She popped out Forge’s external drive and walked to the door, calling out, “You stay in there. I have to make a call.” She closed the bedroom door on him. He looked towards the window, but he knew there was no way to jump from there; it was a straight drop down three stories. He looked back at Taylor’s unconscious body and then, despite himself, sat down in the desk chair. He read a few sickening paragraphs about the Sentinel program, and then returned to the directory, choosing files at random from the folder called “Mutant Defense Initiative.” 

_Targeted sterilization, segregation camps, power dampening protocols, genetic tagging._ There were briefs on all of these. Kemper’s committee was concocting a hundred ways to imprison, neuter, and kill mutants; it was all there in black and white. And Taylor was part of it. John wanted to scream. There was no one he could trust. Not Mystique and Magneto with their casual cruelty and lust for power, not the surface kindness of people like Taylor Kincaid. He stood shakily and moved to look down at his lover of three months. He addressed the unconscious body. 

“No wonder you wanted to keep me out of your business, Tay. You’re another fucking Nazi bigot creep! What is it with all the guys in my life? You all act like fucking angels with your little blond dimples and shy boners. But you’re all the same! You didn’t really care about me! You’re just like fucking Drake! You’re just the perfect little man as long as you don’t have to be HONEST! Fuck you! Fuck!” 

He landed a kick in Kincaid’s side. The body lurched and the man’s head lolled sideways like a broken doll, drooling on the hardwood floor. John dropped to his knees and grabbed the head, lifting it off the ground, fingers laced through the blond hair, still damp from the shower. He held the head with every intention of banging it against the floor until Taylor Kincaid was dead. But the face… It was the same fucking face that had smiled at him with so much love, the same lips that had kissed him and made his hard life seem easy for a little while. “Shit!” he yelled and let the head fall again with a thud. 

“You could break his nose,” Mystique said from the doorway. “That would be a nice souvenir. Or cut off the dick that fucked you every night while he was actually hard for our extermination.” 

“Shut up,” John murmured, not wanting to look up, not wanting her to see the tears that had started again. 

“We have what we need, Pyro. Let’s go. I can’t wait to hear you explain yourself to Magneto.” 

He stood, keeping his back to her. “Just let me get a couple of things. Some clothes, my laptop.” 

“No, leave the computer. It’s government-issue. Could be traced.” 

“Okay, but I left my jacket in the kitchen,” he said, sliding past her out of the room. He walked towards the kitchen, but then suddenly turned on his heel and bolted for the apartment door. He could hear Mystique scream his name as he raced for the stairs. He knew he had only moments before she caught up to him, but he knew the building better than she did. He exited at the second floor and tore around the corner. With any luck, she was already heading for street level. At the end of the hall was a window that let out onto the fire escape. He pushed it up and climbed over the ledge, his feet sliding a bit on the wet metal. He climbed as quickly and carefully as he could, staying low to the stairs, checking his footsteps so the fire escape wouldn’t clang. 

He reached the roof, five floors up, and dropped quickly onto the gravel, his ass immediately soaking through in a small puddle that had formed. The rain began to fall harder and he strained his ears for the sound of the blue woman’s approach. He wasn’t safe here. He had to move. He got to his feet and, crouching low, ran across the roof. He looked over at the next building, a mere six feet away and one floor shorter. It would be an easy jump. _Tuck and roll, John,_ said Jubilee in his head. But he never got that far. He was no sooner up on the ledge when his feet lost their purchase on the slick concrete and he found himself tumbling into space. 

His scream was stupidly short, and with instincts he didn’t know he possessed, he managed to grab at the branches of a tree. But he was falling too fast, and his scrabbling did little but slow him down. He fell through the rain, through the foliage and hit the ground hard, his arm exploding in pain. 

In panic, head spinning, he scrambled to his feet. His arm hung uselessly, like a movie prop. _Stupid!_ He wanted to smack his broken limb for being such an idiot. He had to control himself. He managed the four blocks to the ER of the local hospital without throwing up or fainting. He must have looked pretty bad, because it wasn’t long before a nurse and an intern were around him, asking him questions, poking and prodding him. 

Name? 

“John Allerdyce, A-L-L-E-R…” 

Address? 

Without thinking, he repeated Taylor’s address. 

Insurance provider? 

John laughed. No. None. Nothing. A wave of nausea washed through him. 

He closed his eyes and let them care for him. NPR played quietly from the radio. A nurse was taking his history, pushing a thermometer into his mouth. _What am I gonna do?_ John wondered in misery. He needed to plan. He had to get treated and get away before Taylor woke up or someone found him unconscious in their apartment. The news was on now — a story about a police stand off with at trio of mutant bank robbers. Something about music and brainwashing. 

“This can’t be right,” the nurse said with a strange, nervous laugh. John’s eyes snapped open. He knew he was fucked even before he even saw the thermo-meter’s digital readout. _106.3F_. Now it was Jean Grey in his head, warning him not to get his temperature taken or they’d know right away he was a… 

“A mutant. You’re a _mutant_ ,” the nurse said, her eyes full of fear. 

And maybe it would have been okay, maybe they weren’t bigots or anything, but he couldn’t take the chance. No more chances today. He reached for his lighter. He was on his feet, a fireball already growing in his good hand. There was oxygen in a tank to his right, and in a second, he was flanked by undulating waves of flame and everyone was screaming, running from the room. He was moving down the hall, his flames scorching the walls as he passed, screaming hoarsely, “Get out! Get your patients out! NOW! I’m Pyro, the Fire Mutant! I’m not fucking around!” He was all alertness now. The pain in his arm was distant, beside the point. He was master of his flames and he kept them on a tight leash; flanking him, they snapped and growled. 

He wanted to let the fire loose, to have its way with building, twist it into a screaming inferno that drank air and lives to feed its hungry heart. That’s what they all deserved — every Mystique, every Taylor. They all deserved the torture of the flames. But then something inside him said, _It’s a hospital, asswipe. You’ll kill people._ He returned in that second to sanity. And with that return, the pain in his arm returned as well. The fire pulled at him, trying to get away and satisfy its hunger, and he suddenly felt too weak to control it. 

Chaos spun around him, alarms, sprinklers, evacuation protocols, panicked people, guards with guns. If he didn’t pull it together now, he never would. Sweat pouring from his brow, he dropped to his knees, screaming as his broken arm twisted the wrong way. 

“Nooooooooooooo!” He grabbed the flame by its throat, yanking it to him, choking it off. 

Pyro victorious. 

He was on the floor, dizzy and panting, and a stampede was happening all around him. A young nurse — Ethiopian, he guessed, like a girl he used to play with when he was 10 — bent to help back up. To her, he was just another patient in trouble. She clearly didn’t know he was the one who had caused all the madness. 

“Get up, quickly. The exit is that way. You’ll be okay.” 

And she was gone before he could even say thank you. He saw the exit. He ran. 

He was blocks away, retching in a doorway, shivering from shock when the black car pulled up. Mystique was at the wheel. She leaned across and threw open the passenger door. “Get in, you stupid piece of shit!” 

 

*** 

 

“And you were planning to tell me about this _when?!_ ” Rogue shouted. 

“Please, honey,” Bobby answered, looking around to see who might have heard. “It’s not a big deal.” Bobby had taken her out to the gazebo to break the news, but somehow, he hadn’t been able to say anything until they were actually re-entering the mansion through one of the back doors. 

She stopped and stared at him, mouth open. “Not a big deal? Did you think I wouldn’t care? Didn’t you realize this affects me too?!” 

She was staring at him in a way that suggested he should say something. He tried several openings: “It’s just that…,” “I meant to tell you before…,” and “I guess I’m allowed to have some…” but it was like throwing handfuls of sand into the wind. They kept coming back to slap him in the face. 

“I don’t know why it should surprise me. This shows just what you think of me.” She turned on her heel and began to walk away from him. 

He paused in shock a few seconds, taking in this insult to his finely honed integrity, before running after her. “That’s not fair, Rogue! Sam invited me.” 

“Oh, well then, it wouldn’t have been _polite_ to refuse,” said Rogue’s back as it accelerated away from him. 

“It wasn’t about polite! It’s about… everything! Why don’t you understa —” But Rogue had vanished through the door of the rec room, disappearing into a fog of noise that told Bobby what he’d see before he even got there. The room was packed with students, in various knots of individual hubbub. The headline club was parked in front of the TV which was turned up loud to overpower the cheers of the foosball tournament playing itself out across the room. 

_“The group calling itself Humans First took responsibility for the blast which ripped through the Mutant Resource Center in Oakland. While there were no fatalities, three workers at the center as well as several passersby were injured in the blast…”_

“I read they’re a splinter group of Friends of Humanity,” Kitty called above the din. David Alleyne (the headline club’s self-appointed wielder of the remote) turned the news up louder. 

“Heard it where?” Doug asked, his high voice arcing higher still. 

“Omega Revolt.” 

Clarice snorted. “Those omega jerks think everything’s a conspiracy.” 

“Get tattooed!” called Jubilee, in grunting imitation of Omega Revolt’s motto. “Get tattooed and then bitch to each other on the Internet!” 

_“Meanwhile, the so-called singing bandits appear to have struck again, this time in Iowa. The bank robbers, one of whom is certainly a mutant with sonic abilities, have robbed three institutions in the past month. Each attack was preceded by what those on the scene called a “hypnotic chanting” that paralyzed them until the robbery was finished. For more, we go now to the scene of this latest…”_

More mutant news than ever. When Bobby had first arrived at the school, he’d hid himself behind the walls of Xavier’s school, pretending the rising tide of anti-mutant hatred didn’t exist. But since Stryker’s attack, the walls had become battlements that they huddled behind for safety. The hatred was right out there, trying to get to him. He looked around for Rogue, but he couldn’t see her. Did she slip out the other door while he wasn’t looking? 

“SCORE!!” screamed Sam Guthrie as his team surged toward foosball glory. David turned the TV up. There was a kind of manic desperation in the air as the school year ended, and everyone was hyper and competitive. Next week, some would leave for homes where they were still welcome. Many would remain in Westchester because there was nowhere else for them to go. A refuge could also be a prison. Wild rumors circulated about the possible closing of the school, about Xavier’s imminent arrest. One dumb tale had Scott Summers leaving the school, heading to Peru to become a monk. 

Terry and Pixie marched in arm in arm, sharing the headphones of Pixie’s iPod, singing the Dazzler’s new power anthem at the top of their lungs: _“BETTER LOVE ME FOR WHO I AM!”_

That’s when he saw Rogue. She was sitting in a far corner of the room, in a bay window, arms wrapped around herself. He began moving towards her, but Terry and Pixie spotted her first, descending on her with concern. Bobby stopped, half hiding himself behind a bookshelf as Rogue spilled out her misery to her friends. His stomach twisted. 

_“…debate about so-called ‘special status’ for mutant citizens…”_ intoned the TV, and Bobby couldn’t stand it anymore. He crossed to the group of girls with the gentlest face he could put on. 

“Rogue, come on,” he said softly, getting his face close enough that she could hear him over the noise. “Let’s go somewhere and discuss this.” 

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” she replied, louder than he wished. He could see heads turning their way. _Keep cool, keep cool,_ he told himself. 

“Just give me a chance to explain why —” 

_“We take you now to the nation’s capital where a mysterious fire in a hospital ER might be the latest incident of mutant terror…”_

“Are you my boyfriend or aren’t you?!” Rogue screamed, her face red with anger. He’d never seen her like that. 

The room grew suddenly, shockingly silent. David lowered the TV’s volume until it was only a news mosquito, buzzing tragedies to the nerve endings. 

“Rogue, honey, please,” he hissed, looking around the room nervously. “Of course I am, let’s go discuss this outside.” 

“No! You’ll just confuse me again!” Her voice was low and threatening as a thundercloud. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going home with Sam?!” 

Bobby was squirming like a fish on a hook. “It’s just for a couple of weeks. And I did just tell you,” he assured Rogue and the room. He tried to smile, as if to show everyone she had it all wrong. His chest began to ache. 

“The day before you’re leaving! Gee, thanks. And it’s not a couple of weeks; it’s a whole month!” Rogue walked away from him, turning back when she reached the exact center of the room. “Am I _that_ repulsive to you?” Terry and Pixie came and put their arms around her, shooting Bobby dirty looks. 

“Rogue, I just need to get away, that’s all.” 

“From me! Lately you’ll do anything to get away from me.” 

Bobby looked around for something. Damage assessment? Allies? Among all the eyes turned his way, Jubilee’s burned the hottest. He silently pleaded for her understanding, but she had no mercy for him. With her non-existent telepathy, she told him, _It’s not Rogue you want, it’s John! You had him, you dumb shit, and you pushed him away._ His chest tightened another notch. He needed weed sooooo badly… 

“I’m sorry about this everyone,” he told the room as casually as he could. “Rogue, come on, we’ll go discuss this outside in the —” 

“Leave her alone, Bobby,” Terry said with a nasty edge in her voice. “She’ll come and find you if she wants to. Which I doubt.” 

“Bobby, give it up,” Sam said, ushering him from the room. “When girls close ranks, you’re finished.” Bobby let himself be led away. _Rogue will forgive me_ , he told himself. _The others, too._ He was Bobby Drake, after all. Everyone loved Bobby. In a month, they’d forget. Ow. His chest hurt like a motherfucker. 

 

*** 

 

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkk!!!” John screamed, struggling against the leather restraints. The wave of agony was centered in his broken arm, but it moved through his whole body and flooded his senses. It finally subsided, only to be replaced by a wave of nausea. The healer’s assistant (with the bedside manners of a gorilla) helped him sit half up and aimed his head at the bucket where he vomited long and hard. The healer watched impassively. 

“Jesus Christ at Disneyland,” John moaned, his mouth foul and bitter. “You’re supposed to be fixing me! Why does it have to hurt so much?” 

The healer, a man of indeterminate age with leathery purple skin, pulled his gloves back on. “You will return tomorrow morning for your next healing. The final session will be the following afternoon. Take him back to his room.” 

The assistant (he dubbed her Sister Gorilla of Our Lady of Perpetual Torture) dragged and carried him back to his bunk where he fell into a sleep of contorted dreams. In waking moments, he thought with dread about the next healing session, and with deeper dread about being hauled in front of Magneto when he was better. He was back underground, back in prison. It wasn’t fair. He writhed his way back into fevered slumber. 

The days of healing seemed endless, but when he finally rose shakily from the table after the third agonizing treatment, he found his arm to be in working order. He flexed his fingers and turned the limb in every direction. It was almost worth the misery. He was ordered to the dining room where he was surprised to find himself ravenous. His fellow Brotherhood members chided and threatened as he wolfed down his food, telling him how Magneto was going to tear him to pieces, impale him with metal spikes. But the more they tried to frighten him, the calmer he got, and the angrier. 

He was, in fact, royally sick of being everyone’s puppet. He was sick of being pushed down a path he hadn’t chosen and then punished for the bends that road took. When he was brought into the great meeting hall by two large, intimidating mutants to face Magneto, he didn’t even contemplate cowering. The huge chamber, carved from a great underground cavern, was somewhere between a gladiator arena and a throne room. Shining metal sculptures, classical and modern, were placed around the room, like it was an imperial court. 

Flanked by rows of decorative swords, Magneto sat on his steel throne wearing his helmet, something he never did indoors. Was he trying to seem intimidating? John just thought he looked like a pussy suburban bike rider. Magneto’s rich voice echoed off the walls like God in some cheesy Hollywood Bible epic. “Your actions, Pyro, have been at best desperately incompetent, and at worse, treasonous. What do you have to say for yourself?” 

Pyro shook off the thugs holding his arms and walked a few steps closer to the dais. “Before you even sent me on that bullshit mission, I told you I wasn’t a spy. Here’s some more advice: I bake lousy soufflés. Better not ask me for one of those either.” Various Brotherhood members were there, loitering against the walls, bored, ready for some entertainment. They laughed at John’s audacity, and their eyes turned expectantly towards their leader, awaiting his wrath with wet mouths. 

Magneto’s voice boomed through the cold, stone room. “My soldiers do not get to choose their own assignments! They go where I order them.” 

“Then order me to fight! I’m a Class Four fire manipulator. I’m ready to mix it up.” 

Mystique, standing by the back wall of the chamber, said. “You will fight when I tell Magneto you are ready to fight. You are _far_ from ready.” 

“Bullshit!” John screamed at her. He turned to Magneto. “She’s just scared that I’ll be too good, that you’ll like me more than you like her.” He heard Mystique hiss in anger behind him and he felt fear for the first time. But Magneto raised a hand to stop her. 

“Confidence is admirable, boy,” he said. “But beware of arrogance.” John’s eyes narrowed. They were the same words Xavier had said to him a year before. More Brotherhood members were appearing at the door, sniffing out that something was up. 

John gritted his teeth. They had taken his lighter from him before bringing him here, but the chamber was lit, with dramatic overkill, by two burning gas jets high on the wall. “You want proof, old man?” he snarled. “I’ll give you proof!” He raised his hands and pulled flames from the fixtures to him, forming two giant fireballs. He didn’t think; he just let the flame lust move through him, his eyes fixed on Magneto’s as he began to march step by step across the floor. 

Growls and amazed laughter from the assembled mutants. John threw up a ring of fire around the center of the floor, isolating him and Magneto whom he continued to approach. A sly smile crossed the lips of the Master of Magnetism. Pyro’s heart beat faster. 

Spinning like she was lighter than air, Mystique flipped in over the top of his flame wall and landed with terrifying grace between him and Magneto. John put one of his fireballs between them and readied himself to strike. 

“No, Mystique, this is between the boy and me,” Magneto called and Mystique almost lost her balance as the section of metal floor she was standing on levitated, carrying her up and back over the wall of flame. The floor was all metal, the furnishings, too. John saw the weakness of his position as Magneto grinned with gleeful malice. The statues rose from their positions and began drifting John’s way. An iron bear, an archer in adamantium, shining abstracts of sharpened steel, abandoning their ornamental life and accelerating as they approached. 

John ducked as the bear flew at him. Flames were no defense against these bludgeons, so he filled the air with a cascade of fireballs to distract Magneto as be began to dive and tumble his way towards the dais. The floor began to buck and sway, pieces lifting in waves. John fell to his hands and knees, fighting to keep control of his flames. A bust of Napoleon in polished steel collided painfully with his side and he fell again. But he would not stop. Audacity and speed were his only plausible weapons. It also helped to totally forget that he was fighting one of the most powerful mutants on the planet. 

If he hadn’t been fully focusing, he would have missed the moment. But he had trained in the Danger Room and here with Mystique, so he knew to seize the opportunity. The statues swirled faster and faster as the sections of floor began to fly in earnest. He spun unexpectedly to the side and realized that, with all the fire and metal in the air, Magneto didn’t know where he was. Two sections of floor were spinning towards each other over his head. He pushed off the head of the metal archer and scrambled up one of the sections, leaping from it to the other that was poised right over the throne. Magneto had unwittingly built him the perfect blind. 

All the flames in the room leaped back to him and he rose up, engulfed in swirling red orange, fierce horns of fire rising from his head. He was the angel of death, ready to deal the final blow. Magneto looked up in just in time, an expression of awe and… delight? in his eyes. Three of the swords flanking the throne shot towards John and in a second, they had wrapped themselves around him, pinning his arms to his side, binding his legs. A fourth sword wavered in front of his face and John screamed in frustration, defiance, inarticulate passion. He pulled the flames into himself and their heat was a hard, sobering drug. 

John looked around the room. The Brotherhood members were standing, amazed, staring from him to Magneto and back. They were impressed. Then John saw Mystique charging towards him, screaming, fists raised. 

“Mystique!” Magneto barked. “To my side.” She came to an abrupt halt and, barely containing herself, complied. Magneto smiled at him, as if the attack had been his idea all along. “Well, well, Pyro. You certainly have the fire in your belly, don’t you? Here’s something I think you might enjoy.” 

Firmly bound by the iron restraints, Pyro was lifted off the ground and turned like a chicken on a spit to face a large viewing screen on the wall. The screen turned on to a news broadcast and he watched in shock as Taylor Kincaid and a lawyer shouting “no comment” fought their way through a phalanx of reporters outside a government building, disappearing inside, ignoring the questions that flew by him. 

_“Did you know that John Allerdyce was a mutant?” “How long were you lovers? Did you talk about your work with him?” “How much did Congressman Kemper know of your relationship?”_

It sounded ridiculous to hear his name on the news. For a minute he wondered if someone was playing a trick. And then a picture of him. He recognized it from his school bus pass when he was 15. His hair was long, his face thin and soft. Just a boy. Where did they get it? From his mom? What could she be thinking about his sudden celebrity? Then blurry cell phone footage from three days earlier of him in the ER, surrounded by his flames. Older, harder. A man. 

“John Allerdyce’s name literally hit the news last year when a poem attributed to the runaway (who also calls himself by the mutant name ‘Pyro’) appeared on the news scroller in New York’s Times Square. This takeover of the news scroller was surmised by authorities to be a mutant attack. Investigators also place a young mutant of Allerdyce’s description at the scene of a large house fire in Brooklyn last year. His connection, if any, to existing terrorist organizations is unknown. There is also no word as to how he became connected with Taylor Kincaid, who has been consulting for Congressman Kemper on mutant issues.” 

It was all too much to take in. For a moment, he forgot where he was, hanging like a drying cod above Magneto’s throne. His name was on the news: a poet, a mutant, a kickass terrorist! More footage of Taylor trying to get inside the building. John knew the man was finished. His career, his marriage — all had come undone because of him. John marveled at his own power. Poor Taylor looked beaten, weary, older than his years. For a moment, John’s heart ached, but then he took hold of his emotions. Pity had no place here. The lie of Taylor’s love was an insult. John wanted nothing more to do with murdering hypocrites like Kincaid and his smiling army of suits. He had made something happen, something right. 

Magneto called up cheerfully to him. “Not a bad result in the end. We have our information, and you’ve tarred their sordid little government with scandal.” John was lowered again to the ground as Magneto turned to Mystique. “And I hate to disagree with you, my dear, but he is indeed a fighter. True, he lacks your finesse, but he more than makes up for it with _passion!_ ” John shot Mystique a smug smirk. She clenched her jaw and her stare promised revenge. 

Magneto turned serious. “Are you ready to dedicate yourself, body and soul to our cause, Pyro?” The spears that bound him suddenly released, straightened themselves, and flew back to their positions by the throne. 

John shook his limbs loose. He felt powerful, ready to burn down the world. “They want to round us up, imprison us, kill us. I won’t let that happen as long as there is fire left in my veins. I want to be your warrior, Magneto.” Sure, the words were cheesy, but they also felt true. Besides, Magneto loved the romance of his own cause. Sometimes a little cheese was just what you needed. 

“And what about your mentor, Charles Xavier?” Magneto asked. “What about all his students? Are you not loyal to them?” 

“Xavier is weak and arrogant. He’d sell us out for the thinnest promise of peace from the biggest hypocrite in the world. I’m done with him. With all of them.” 

Magneto smiled again and John felt like he did on his best nights hustling on the street: desired, indestructible. “Then you shall be my warrior, young Pyro,” said Magneto. And to everyone in the room he proclaimed, “Pyro shall be my warrior!” 

The Brotherhood cheered on cue. 


	34. The Funk (X3), Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Events in this and the following five chapters take place around events in “X3: The Last Stand”

It’s a beat as deep as the planet. You’re aware of it even before it has awakened you from your sleep in the deep. _Good God, have mercy!_

On the one. 

As with all births, it will begin in water. You remember the earlier ones. The receding tide, the journey downwards, the pressure. Emergence! The unbearable light; sound a revelation, an explosion. “It’s a girl, Mrs. Grey.” 

_But also_

Evanescent surfacing in the womb of cosmic matter, the disembodied, omniscient voice: “Nebulas, the nurseries of the stars. Across light years, these massive pools of matter and energy are the chaos from which all life originates.” 

Twin origins. Concurrent contradictions. It is time to awaken into wholeness. 

_*Scott…*_

 

*** 

 

“Charles, I don’t think you’re taking the situation seriously enough.” Andi drummed her fingers in frustration as Professor Xavier answered an email. His behavior was downright rude. _You don’t conduct other business when you’re in the middle of a meeting with someone!_

“I’ll be with you in one moment, Andi. Hank needs a last-minute quote for his first speech as Secretary of Mutant Affairs.” He smiled up at her. “His appointment is wonderful news, don’t you think? The first mutant to hold the position.” She had no choice but smile back and be patient as he finished his email. 

She had been trying to get this meeting with Xavier, her thesis advisor, for almost a month, but something had always come up. Back in June, they had been wrapping up the school year with final papers to mark and student evaluations to compose. Since then, the man had been all but inaccessible, meeting with both governmental and private sector contacts on mutant rights issues. She felt peevish about her annoyance — the situation for mutants in America was becoming tense, and the government was sending a confusing array of mixed signals — but he had made promises to her, too, and time was running out. 

“Charles, please,” she said after a minute of listening to him type. “We have so little time, and I need your feedback on my paper before I submit it to the Journal of Adolescent Psychology.” 

“Just one short minute, my dear…” he said, squinting at his screen and typing. 

She remembered her very first conversation with the man, more than two years earlier. Within five minutes of picking up the phone, she had found herself cleaving to his agenda, making passionate promises to help him fulfill his altruistic mission. Two years later, the life she had known before had been completely swallowed by the hungry needs of Professor X and the School for Gifted Youngsters. She had abandoned her work on children of divorce to dedicate herself to the psychosocial effects on X-gene manifestation in mutant youth. During the school year, she had at times forgotten that she even had an apartment in Manhattan and a relationship with her boyfriend, Raheem. Westchester had been her _de facto_ home, the staff and students of the school her society. After all, it was here that she taught high school, here that she counseled youth, here that her test subjects lived (the same mutant youth), and here that her thesis advisor was, in theory, available. 

“Now then, Andi,” The Professor said, folding his hands in his lap and smiling at her. “Your paper.” 

She leaned forward expectantly. 

“I’ve read it and I feel you’re on the right track; however, there are several areas where I think the editors will demand clarification, and I want to make sure you’re ready to respond to those demands. Firstly —” 

There was a brief knock at the door before it opened. “Professor?” Scott Summers stuck his head in. “Oh, hi Andi, sorry to interrupt.” She nodded with a small, awkward smile. 

She had seen very little of Scott in recent months, though she knew he’d been around the mansion. He had returned to teaching in January, but by February, he had given it up, retreating into the underworld of administration. From time to time he did make an appearance (popping up like a ghost at dinner, or in the rec room in the middle of a movie), but Andi continued to be shocked by the transformation wrought by Jean’s death. Whereas the Scott she had first met was always immaculately dressed, with every hair in place, this haunted man tended to wear the same sweater — with its missing buttons and hole in the elbow — at all times. His hair drooped unhappily over the tops of his ears and across his forehead. 

“There’s a courier at the front gate,” Scott said. “And he insists that he has to hand a package to you personally. I don’t like it.” 

“No, no,” Xavier said hastily. “Show him in. Please, I’m expecting him.” Andi had the immediate impression the Professor was hiding something. She looked at Scott who seemed annoyed and confused. He left, closing the door behind him. 

Then it was Andi’s turn to be annoyed. “Wait, you’re not canceling our meeting, are you?” 

“Andi, this is important. I’m sorry, I can’t explain.” He avoided her eyes, focusing intensely on his screen again. “I have an opening for you next Tuesday…” 

She marched down the hall in fury, the slap of her loafers echoing on the hardwood. _I’ve had it,_ she thought. _I will_ not _be taken for granted like this! Who does he think…_ Then she wondered if he could hear her thoughts. Shame washed over her. But no! _Let him hear!_

She imagined for a moment what it would be like to have Xavier’s powers. If she had, she would plant an alarm deep in his head that would explode like a grenade every ten minutes, shouting: ANDI! ANDI! ANDI! until he was forced to meet with her or lose his sanity. She arrived in the lobby and found a small group of students looking excitedly through the windows by the front door. She was struck with a new appreciation for those with the burden of mutant powers. How much control did it take not to use your abilities in anger? To ignite an annoying roommate, to blow up your parents’ heads with a sonic scream when they _just didn’t listen to you_ for the hundredth time? She was glad she didn’t have to face these moral tests. 

But what were the students were looking at? she wondered. The group suddenly jumped back as the front door flew open. In strutted Charles’s courier. The tall black man sported a four-inch afro and a thick, sexy moustache. He moved across the marble floor like he was taking the stage at the Apollo. On his shoulder was a large CD player, the kind they had called a “ghetto-blaster” when Andi was a child. In fact, he looked like something straight out of one of those 70s movies Raheem liked to watch — “Shaft” or “Car Wash” — movies that were loud, garish calls for racial and cultural revolution. 

Like an incarnation of those anachronisms, the courier’s slim hips rocked and swayed to the funk beat that pulsed from the speakers, filling the normally staid atmosphere of the school with oozing purple groove. He winked at Andi and flashed a million-tooth smile at Terry and Pixie who burst into blushing laughter. Sam, halfway down the stairs, was caught in a reverie that could only be called reverence. 

The heavy courier bag rocked against the man’s hip as he marched down the hall towards Charles’ office, singing along with the music: _“Give up the funk / Tear the roof off the mutha, sucka / We need the funk / Gotta have the funk!”_

He knocked three times in rhythm on the Professor’s door and then entered confidently, not waiting to be asked in. 

 

Charles offered the courier a bemused smile. “You have left a wake of thrill and consternation behind you. You’ve always had a knack for making a dramatic entrance, Mystique.” 

Mystique’s lithe blue form emerged from the courier’s muscular bulk. She switched off the music and sat herself smoothly down in one of the large leather armchairs, crossing her naked legs. “It’s the institutional atmosphere, Xavier. Schools, government buildings… All those impotent little men compensating with their big hard rules. It makes me want to mess things up a bit.” Her eyes narrowed in anticipation of his reaction, but Xavier only nodded as if he understood all too well. 

“Well then, I appreciate your deigning to enter _our_ institution to bring me this intelligence.” 

She rose and crossed to the desk, handing him a package from the courier bag that hung incongruously from her shoulder. “Don’t thank me; it was Magneto’s idea to share what we’ve learned. I don’t trust you or your motives. I think you’re naïve and in love with your own tiny celebrity.” 

He opened the package with a silver letter opener, pulling out a USB drive. “Forge-tech,” he muttered, plugging the cable into a port set into his oak desk. “I admit I was surprised by Erik’s communication, and more than a little alarmed. I had thought the current administration in Washington was finally one we could trust.” The files flashed before him, disturbing, damning. He was silent. “Poor Hank,” he finally said. “He believed we were turning a corner.” 

Mystique picked up her CD player and walked back to the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “Trust is a luxury for the ones in power, Xavier. We mutants can’t afford it.” She transformed back into the courier. 

Charles studied her with a look of clinical interest. “And yet I have trusted you today, and you me. How does that fit into your philosophy, Raven?” 

“My name is Mystique,” she answered coldly in the black man’s deep voice. “Frankly, Mr. Professor, I woulda been _tickled_ to see a phalanx of Sentinels descending on your pretty little estate. Later,” she said, turning on the music and jiving her way out, leaving the door open so he could watch her exit, singing out to all the trusting souls of the school, “We need the funk! / Gotta have the funk!” 

Xavier looked through the documents again. He was impressed by the ingenuity of the plans. He wasn’t one to use words like “diabolical,” but it was hard to maintain his objectivity in the face of this evidence. Internment camps. _Sentinels!_ He maximized a control panel on his screen and brought the security cameras online. When the courier truck had left the gates, he picked up his phone and dialed. “She is heading north on Greymalkin Lane. No, wait. Don’t pick her up yet. I have a better suggestion. I read her mind; she’s planning a break in at the FDA facility in Oakland. Probably a week from Tuesday. If you catch her there, you will have a stronger case against her.” He looked out his window and thought about trust. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. “And, General Trask, I have your word that my institute will be left alone? Including my staff and students? No, I have no more contact with John Allerdyce. He’s with Magneto’s people.” Charles remembered that he had meant to ask Mystique about his former student, who was often in his thoughts. He cursed his aging brain. 

“General, one more thing. I have come into possession of some most disturbing documents. They seem to suggest an alarming anti-mutant initiative by the government. I assume that if such a plan were more than just the work of a reactionary fringe, the new Secretary of Mutant Affairs would be the first to know?” 

 

Trust. 

Mystique adjusted the transceiver on the dashboard, watching the surveillance signal describe a placid, meaningless sine wave. She cursed quietly and pushed another button on the dash. 

“This is Pyro,” came the annoying voice. 

“Mystique here. Delivery made. Let me speak to Magneto.” 

Pyro ignored her request. “Did you remember to plant the bug?” 

She held back the response that sprang to her lips. The boy was probably on speaker phone with Magneto in the room. “Obviously. Unlike some people, I know how to follow plans. But Forge has left their mansion immune to that kind of monitoring. If we ever need to move against Xavier’s people, we’ll need a different source of tech.” 

Magneto’s voice in the background. “We took a chance going there in person. Was Charles grateful for our olive branch or will he betray us?” 

She considered this. “I don’t think he will. He was glad for the scraps we threw him.” 

“Don’t overestimate your charms,” Pyro sneered. “He probably read your mind. The Feds will be blasting their way into our headquarters within the hour.” 

She clenched the wheel harder. “Listen, little boy. It’s not your job to make judgment calls. When I get back we’ll —” 

“Magneto and I have already left. We’re on the road, keeping our heads down. Rendezvous with us at the forest HQ in ten days. We’re going into radio silence.” 

The boy abruptly closed communication and could not be raised again. She screamed and slapped the wheel. Now that Pyro had planted the suggestion, she could almost feel Xavier rooting around in her thoughts like a snuffling dog. The Feds might well be closing in. She accelerated the truck, passing cars like they were standing still. Her eyes turned again and again to her rearview mirror as she swerved onto a rural route and then onto a dirt path that only barely qualified as a road. She abandoned the truck behind a barn and, picking up her pack, began to hike back the way she’d come. 

When she reached the main road, she became a non-descript youth, hitchhiking cross-country in search of meaning. At the tourist-town bed and breakfast that night, she was a middle-aged school teacher, reading historical fiction with stuffy pleasure as she polished off her apple brown betty. She disappeared into the skin of America as only a chameleon can, heading west. 

 

*** 

 

“A toast to my son on his 18th birthday,” said William Drake, raising his glass of red wine and bowing slightly to Bobby who sat awkwardly across the table from him, his knee bumping against Rogue’s as he fidgeted. Five of them were squeezed around a table that should only have seated four in the busy middle aisle of a touristy Times Square eatery. Rogue smiled and raised her cranberry juice, and his brother Ronny clanged his glass noisily with a fork, earning a scowl from Madeline Drake over the rim of her daiquiri as she sipped fussily at the froth. 

“Here, Bobby, try this Merlot,” William said, handing the glass across the table. 

Madeline put out a hand to stop him. “William, he is under 21! You’ll get us thrown out of here.” 

“For heaven’s sake, Madeline, don’t start,” he replied. 

Ronny abruptly leaned over to lick a sip from his mother’s drink, sitting up again with a daiquiri moustache, winking at Rogue. 

Madeline pushed him away. “Ronny! Behave yourself, what will, um, Marie think?” She smiled nervously in the girl’s direction. Bobby had confused his mother at the start of the evening by introducing his girlfriend as Rogue. The strangeness of the name left Madeline blinking until Rogue offered a gloved hand and said to call her Marie. Since then, his mother had avoided his eyes altogether and talked only to her. 

“I’m fine with my Coke, Dad,” Bobby said, ducking as a waiter flew by with a full tray. 

Ronny wasn’t the same little boy that Bobby had known when he lived in Boston. While Bobby seemed to be taking after his tall, lean maternal grand-father, Ronny at 15 already seemed poised to inherit his father’s imposing bulk. The boy seemed to take up half the room at the table with his presence. He pushed his hair off his forehead and said, “So, aren’t you guys, like wanted by the police? After all the mutant terrorist shit in the news?” 

“Language,” his mother snapped and smiled weakly at Rogue. 

Bobby was determined to get through the evening without a fight. Carefully, he replied, “The Professor told us it was fine to go out. It isn’t anyone from the school who did that stuff. Don’t confuse us with Magneto’s Brotherhood.” 

Ronny leaned forward, traversing half the small table. “Yeah, except the firestorm on our front lawn was you guys. Not to mention the way your jet knocked down the Kravtiz’s maple tree.” 

“And none of that would’ve happened if you hadn’t called the cops on your own brother!” Bobby replied, half rising until his nose was practically touching his brother’s. 

William stood and pushed them apart. “Bobby, sit down and don’t taunt your brother.” 

“Me? What about him totally betraying _his_ brother?!” 

Ronny hit the table with his fist. “How did I know what you guys would do to us? I mean, what about the art teacher with the knives in his hand?” 

“Marie!” Madeline said desperately. “I love what you’ve done with your hair.” She reached up to touch the long white tresses and Marie pulled back hastily, banging the back of her chair into a patron behind her. 

“Excuse me,” she said, and then turning back to Madeline, “Sorry, Mrs. Drake. You shouldn’t touch me…” 

“It’s dangerous, Mom, I _told_ you,” Bobby said, exasperated, wondering why it was impossible for the fucking Drakes to just have a peaceful birthday dinner. 

“Yeah, Mom,” Ronny smirked. “We’re eating with dangerous mutants. Watch out or she’ll turn you into a frog.” 

“Ronny!” both his parents said in unison. Then the food arrived. Three of the orders were wrong. 

In one way, Bobby welcomed his family’s usual feuding: it kept his mind off the plan that he had formulated for the rest of the evening. He was pretty sure he could pull it off, but there was a distinct possibility of creating an idiotic sitcom of the whole thing. And if he did succeed, he would be opening up a whole new chapter of fear. Okay, one thing at a time. 

They made it to the end of dinner more or less unscathed. After they’d all finished dessert, Bobby reminded his family that he and Rogue had a train to catch back to Westchester. His parents stood quickly, but Ronny remained seated, pushing a scrap of brownie around his ice cream dish with a distracting clatter of spoon on glass. 

Rogue wished the senior Drakes good night and thanked them for the meal. 

“Ronny, maybe you’ll come and see us at the school some time,” she suggested with admirable sincerity. Ronny’s blush caught Bobby by surprise. He realized for the first time that the boy had been attracted to her all night. For an uncomfortable moment, Bobby envied his brother. 

“Would you mind waiting for me downstairs?” Bobby asked Rogue. 

“Oh no, of course. You take your time with your family, sugar.” 

As she departed, Madeline let slip a sigh of relief. Bobby’s father shook his hand. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer, son, but Ronny has a baseball game tomorrow afternoon. We have to get him back.” 

“That’s okay, dad, I have stuff to do at school in the morning.” 

“Well, then, I wish you luck… I mean, happy birthday, son.” 

His mother jumped forward and hugged him, saying, “Oh, Bobby…” as if he was heading off to war. She jumped back to William’s side and looked away, blinking back tears. He looked at Ronny who raised a fist which Bobby bumped. 

He found Rogue at the door of the restaurant, looking at signed celebrity photographs. “Sorry we’re such idiots, honey,” he said. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. “If families didn’t love each other so much, they’d probably kill each other. Did you have a good time?” 

“Not bad. I mean, I guess it’s hard for them to get used to us, especially the way we all met the last time. It made it easier that you were here.” He bent and kissed the top of her head where her hair was thick enough to protect him. He had returned from his month with Sam’s family feeling a lot of uncertainty about their relationship; but it turned out that Rogue was as anxious as he was for the easy normalcy of being boyfriend and girlfriend. It gave them both identity within the school. She had stopped asking him if he really loved her or if he minded not having sex, and he had been cheerful and polite to her. It was a tacit agreement to play their roles as best they could. Still, it always felt like there was a reckoning waiting just around the corner, when unspeakable truths would be demanded. 

“Listen,” he told her carefully. “My parents asked if I wanted to stay overnight at the hotel with them. They suggested — you won’t believe it — that we go to the Statue of Liberty in the morning.” 

A look of horror crossed Rogue’s face at the suggestion, but then she burst out laughing. “Fine, you’ll excuse me if I don’t come along. My last visit was enough for one lifetime.” 

“I’m going to walk you to the subway. Then I’ll call Scott and tell him the change of plans. You know how he worries.” 

“Mama Summers,” she laughed. “I’m glad you’re getting along so well with your family. You have fun. I’ll be fine.” 

They were out in the tourist crush of Times Square now. The night was cooler, a relief after the day’s humidity. They watched an R&B singer with a guitar belting out “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and tossed a few dollars in his guitar case. Vendors were selling D&G sunglasses from cardboard boxes, loud hawkers were handing out invites to comedy shows. But Bobby had a different destination. 

He walked Rogue to Grand Central Station and waved as she vanished through the doors. And then he was alone, just an 18 year old and his scary plan. 

New York City was alive on this hot summer night, and he suddenly felt like part of something big — the world of adults who controlled their own destinies, who did exciting things and took chances. That was what this night was about. He patted the wallet in his front pants pocket for the hundredth time and then took out his cell phone and called Scott about his happy, spurious reunion with the Drakes. 

With the call out of the way, there was nothing stopping him. He was free. He got on the subway and took the number 4 train down to 14th Street. There he switched to the L line and took it to 1st Avenue. Successfully navigating the underground portion of his journey gave him a feeling of control and calmed his fear. However, as he climbed from the steamy lower depths into the night city, his nerves spiked again. He pulled the Google Map printout from his pocket, oriented himself, and began walking purposefully into the tangle of dark buildings. 

He had read online about a few blocks in the Lower East Side that were becoming known as Mutant Town. The idea of coming here had been cooking in his brain for months, and he realized how he had mythologized the place in his head. Somehow, he had expected to see obvious mutants walking down the street, smiling, welcoming him home. In fact, apart from some Omega Revolt posters glued to the utility poles, he saw nothing that would distinguish the neighborhood from any other run-down and slightly scary district. 

He checked his map discreetly, trying hard not to look like a tourist. Two blocks straight, right turn, look for the green door on the south side. When he got there, he pushed the door wide and was immediately hit by music and heat rising up from the basement bar. New York City, it is said, has everything if you knew where to look for it. According to rumor, “Born Like This” was the world’s first mutant queer bar. 

At the bottom of the stairs was long, narrow corridor that led to the main room. Bobby felt like he was being forced through a machine, or a birth canal. The black-painted walls were littered with stapled-on flyers for plays, drag shows, porn auditions, and political action meetings. Half the posters seemed to feature either an impossibly enticing guy or a fierce drag queen. Both types left him feeling queasy. The rest of the wall was naked staple heads, like teeth, where posters had been pulled off. 

Just before the end of the tunnel sat a huge Asian man who reached a substantial arm across Bobby’s path. 

“You got ID, buddy?” he said in broad New York twang that Bobby could just hear above the music. 

Bobby nodded so hard, he almost snapped a cervical vertebra. He reached for his wallet and pulled out the fake ID he had bought from the dealer kid in the park. He worked hard to keep his cool, rocking stiffly to the music, glancing around the bouncer’s bulk to try and scope out the room beyond. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the man stare at the ID and then pull back his khaki cap to reveal a third eye with which he assessed the card further. 

He handed back the ID and turned his attention to Bobby. “So, what’s yer power?” 

Bobby was startled. Asking so openly was considered rude at the mansion. “Um,” he stammered. “I, uh, do this.” He made an ice ball in his upturned palm which the bouncer reached out and took. He examined it with an appreciative grunt and put it down on top of an empty beer glass. He shot Bobby a smile and winked at him with both his left and center eyes. 

“First time here, kid? Well, have fun but don’t get too wasted. You don’t want to do anything stupid with the wrong guy, right? And remember that you don’t got to do nothin’ with no one. It’s your choice, got it?” 

Bobby nodded mutely and the man moved aside to let him pass. Again, his imagination had prepared him for more — a grand cavern of a club with miles of chrome and impossibly beautiful men. Maybe he was happier to find that Born Like This was just a small, low-ceilinged bar decorated in warm colors and antique light fixtures. This classy ambience was offset by a few oscillating laser lights and thumpy trip-hop which played just on the edge of really loud. At the tables and on the tiny dance floor was a mixture of men and women, mostly under 30. He found himself staring at men dancing together — free and joyous or close and sexy. The sight was as beautiful as anything he’d ever seen. 

He realized he was getting interested looks from around the room. One intimidatingly sexy couple on the dance floor was waving for him to join them, and he felt his stomach flip flop. He just gave them a friendly nod and made his way quickly to the bar where he sat hunched over, trying not to panic. Not wanting to press his luck with the fake ID, he ordered a Coke. He looked up when the bartender handed him his drink and found himself staring dumbly at the video on the screen behind the bar: a naked, four-armed muscleman with an enormous double dick. Was it mutant porn or digital effects? 

He only belated noticed the guy who sat down next to him. He was dressed punk, like Mike Haddad. Facial piercings and a buzz cut, and a sleeveless t-shirt for some band called “Kill the Prom Queen.” 

“Hey,” the guy said to Bobby. “I’m Redshift.” Sure enough, the whole room suddenly turned a pinkish-red as if Bobby had put on cheap sunglasses. The effect lasted just a second and left Bobby feeling a little giddy. 

He laughed. “Cool. I’m Bobby.” 

Redshift scowled as if he didn’t like the name. “So, this your first time here? You’re really cute. Let me guess — fresh off the boat from some little island in Maine.” 

“Close. Boston.” Bobby wondered why he hadn’t said Westchester or even that he was local. He felt like he didn’t really have control over his mouth. 

“You need a new name, Bobby. A mutant name. You tattooed yet?” Redshift shrugged a shapely shoulder up for examination and Bobby saw the crude omega tattoo. He had never actually met anyone from Omega Revolt, and wasn’t sure what someone from such a reactive group might do. Here. To him. He reached for his Coke a bit too abruptly, spilling half the contents across the bar. 

“Shit, sorry. Um, that looks… nice. No, I don’t really believe in… I mean, I’m not sure Omega Revolt is the best way to — ” 

“To liberate our people? To show that you’re not ashamed of the way you were born? So you’re not a newbie. You’re an assimilator.” 

The world shifted red again and this time it made him nauseous. Why was this guy hassling him? 

“Look,” Bobby said, “we don’t have to talk politics, do we? I mean, we came here because we’re both… you know.” Redshift got to his feet, planted a hand on the bar and leaned in close, shouting his message over the music into Bobby’s ear. 

“Bobby, don’t be such a no-nothing little twink, okay? You’re not _that_ cute.” 

“Give the guy a break, Redshift,” cautioned the bartender as he wiped up Bobby’s spill. 

“Come on, Satch, you know the type. Little suburban mutant boys, waiting around until the government gives us a stamp of approval and promises not to be mean anymore. Well, I have news for you, suburban boy: until mutants stand up and declare themselves, loud and proud, we’re not going to get a damned thing. Get tattooed, Bobby! Shove it in people’s faces or else you’re just another pathetic victim.” 

“’Ey, you, Lightshow or h-whatever,” came a voice from behind them. “Where’s yer rainbow tattoo if you so into da pride ting, _henh_?” The red haze lifted and Bobby spun round in his chair to find Remy LeBeau, the creepy guy John had dated the previous summer, very close and very intense. His red eyes burned hotter than Redshift’s color field and his quirky smile sent a tremble through Bobby’s chest. 

“Fuck off, Gambit,” Redshift said, though his bravado was instantly cut in half. “Me and Bobby were just getting to know each other.” 

“Nah, Bobby knows de hypocrites when he sees dem, right? You make yer speeches after you have de balls to tell your Omega _amis_ dat you like to suck de cock, _henh_? Come on, Bobby, let’s get out of here.” 

Redshift grabbed Bobby’s arm indignantly. “He’s with me! Right, Bobby?” 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Did Redshift like him after all? Was there some kind of etiquette to these situations? But Remy just laughed. “Careful, _p’tit coq_. He used to be de Pyro’s boyfriend.” 

Redshift dropped Bobby’s arm and moved back a step. “Pyro from Magneto’s Brotherhood?” He turned to Bobby, but before Bobby could say that he wasn’t anyone’s boyfriend, Redshift was stammering, “Sorry, man, didn’t know. We were just talking, right? No harm.” 

Remy laughed again and turned to exit. A moment of panic, and Bobby found himself stumbling after the Cajun back towards the long entranceway. Some old guy called from a corner table, “Don’t leave yet, sweetie!” 

The whole evening was a nightmare and he was glad for the excuse to escape. But where would he go? Where could he sleep? He had never really worked out that part of the plan. He had sort of imagined that he would be staying until morning in the bed of some cool, sweet, handsome young mutant who would make love to him all night and introduce him to the delights of a brave new life. Breakfast in his sunny loft, promises to call soon… 

_What a fucking loser you are, Drake._

So he followed Remy out into the night and stuck close beside the man as they navigated the sketchy streets full of scary shadows. 

_“Incroyable!”_ Remy said, sucking back on a bottle of Stella he had taken with him from the bar. “Imagine my surprise, _p’tit mec_. Finding you here with da queers of Mutant Town.” 

“It was just, um, a coincidence. I didn’t know it was a gay bar!” 

Remy’s laugh filled the empty street. He reached into a deep pocket of his great coat and pulled out another beer. He touched the cap which began to glow and suddenly shot off into the air, a small geyser of beer following. Remy handed the bottle to Bobby “Here, _cher_ , you need a drink.” 

“Listen, Mr. LeBeau, I have a train to catch and —” 

“Too late, _cher_. Last one leaves in 10 minutes. You stay da night at Remy’s place.” 

“But…” 

“Drink!” 

Soon they were sitting across from each other at a battered oak table in Remy’s high-ceilinged loft, drinking another beer. Bobby watched in silence while Remy did acrobatic things with a deck of cards, letting them roll and tumble through his fingers like little gymnasts. The loft was somewhere between an elegant home and an antiques warehouse. Some of the furniture was classy, old, and polished to a shine, but some was broken, standing in odd arrangements, like party guests who had nothing in common. That was when Bobby remembered Remy LeBeau, Gambit, was a thief. His right leg started stomping nervously, the tap-tap echoing in the big space. Remy looked at the leg and raised an eyebrow. Bobby stilled it abruptly. 

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, he reassured himself. He had a roof over his head, and the cold beer felt good going down. The silence was good, too. Between the stupid restaurant, Times Square and the bar, his ears had had enough. 

“So, Bobby,” Remy said, watching his fingers doing their tricks. “I am t’inking, you are pretty brave, _henh_? You come down here alone, looking for da queer bar. Johnny, he didn’t t’ink you could do something like this.” 

At the mention of John’s name, something twisted inside Bobby. “What… What did he say about me?” 

“Dat you would rather eat poison then let anyone know you eat dick.” 

Bobby blushed and felt a hot stab of anger. “He doesn’t fucking know me, okay?” He got up and moved among the antiques, running his fingers along the dusty face of a filigreed mantel clock. “What is this stuff? You steal it all?” 

“Not all,” Remy responded. “You right, _cher_ , nobody really knows nobody, I t’ink. Maybe you gonna surprise dem all.” 

Bobby turned and stared at the Cajun who had put down the cards. He was leaning back in his chair now, boots up on the table. His shirt had opened a few buttons and Bobby found himself checking out the chestnut hairs revealed in the ‘v’. His breath caught in his throat and he licked his lips. “Hey, uh, do you have any weed?” 

Remy stood up smoothly, his smile seeming to say, “but _I_ know you, Bobby.” 

They climbed a ladder to a platform that served as Remy’s bedroom. Rugs were piled on rugs, woven in all the colors of the sunset; gold-framed reproductions of Caravaggio and Rubens hung from the ceiling on long chains. The bed was massive and brass and Remy moved around it, lighting candles in ornate holders of glass, wood and copper. Bobby was soon sitting close beside him on the bed, watching him fill a pipe. Then the smoke was sliding down his throat and Remy’s knee was touching his. 

“What’s da matter, _cher_?” Remy’s voice. Remy’s arm around his shoulder. Comfort, excitement. 

“Do you miss him?” Bobby asked. “John, I mean.” 

“Do you?” 

“Sometimes… Sometimes it’s like he’s a million miles away. I mean, he’s a member of the Brotherhood, for God’s sake. He practically burned down a hospital.” 

“mmm.” 

“But then, I close my eyes in the dark and he’s right there, you know? I can feel his skin, his kiss. Taste it. And then he reaches out and his hand touches me.” 

Remy’s voice like hot butter: “Where does ’e touch you?” 

“The back of my neck. My arm. My stomach.” And Remy’s hands were there too. Sense memory, but new. 

Bobby felt himself being pulled into Gambit’s vortex, falling away from the stifling safety of the world he knew. “And sometimes I almost say his name into the dark.” 

Remy unbuttoning Bobby’s shirt and running his rough hands against his nipples. “You love him, Bobby,” he said in his ear. 

“No!” But Bobby wasn’t sure what he was saying “no” to. He turned with open mouth to find Remy’s mouth, and they were kissing. It was a hard kiss and Remy’s tongue was hot, though not as hot as John’s. 

“You got to tell dem, _cher_. You go shout it from da rooftops,” Remy said as he pushed Bobby back on the gold satin bedspread. “John Allerdyce, _je t’aime!_ I ’ave not forgotten.” 

Their clothes had melted away. The pressed shirt he wore so his mother would know he was still a good boy had sunk into the Bayou. He was naked, and Remy’s size, his size and strength and hair were there for him, so welcome. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Bobby whispered, gasping, reaching, drawing the man into himself, like pungent smoke. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mystique is singing “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)” by Parliament Funkadelic.


	35. The Funk, Part 2 (X3)

_Integrate._

It is not, strictly speaking, necessary to find the original parts of us. A weed growing on the floor of the lake can be rebuilt to suit as easily as a fish-gnawed morsel of our decayed liver. But there is sentimental value. 

_What’s happening?_

_Sleep! You are not needed here._

_Aren’t we dead?_

_You are. Act accordingly and shut up._

_*Scott!*_

_Be quiet! Your human weakness caused enough trouble last time._

_*Scott!!*_

_Very well, call him. Our new flesh might well benefit from the stimulation. Then we will feast upon his energy to fuel our triumphant return._

_I stopped you before. I can do it again._

_No, you have slept too long…_

 

*** 

 

Magneto didn’t like the Internet. He had always made Mystique or some acolyte plumb its depths to keep him apprised of the world as it leaked in from the Web. All those chat rooms and blogs filled with useless, self-important, deranged and ignorant souls! The information was important, but the company revolting. But now Pyro, that amusing, infuriating boy had forced him into it. 

He’d had no idea his new right-hand man was a writer until the day before the Brotherhood released a video to the media. Pyro had presented him with a new version of his speech that far outshone his own effort. It had taken some humility to admit this, but Magneto knew he would get the credit for the words anyway. He had quickly put the boy to work as his ghost writer. After all, he was far too busy to refuse competent help. 

Magneto was weary. He and Pyro were making themselves hard to follow, occupying their fifth cheap hotel room in 10 days, and the boy had finally complained that he couldn’t edit Magneto’s memoirs _and_ write his speeches if he _also_ had to troll the Internet for the day’s headlines. They were soon leaving Circuit City with a cheap laptop (Humiliating! Half the power of the one Pyro was using; but they had to conserve resources…). And now they were both hunched over like trolls in the dark on opposite ends of a dingy room in some two-star hole. 

The truth was, Magneto had soon become addicted to the awesome breadth of media at his fingertips. In addition to spending his time reading news and analysis, he had discovered some of his favorite bygone singers, both German and American, on YouTube. He combed through sites on industrial design, and studied the lives of great painters, reveling in the beauty of their works. He invented aliases to enter into debates in news forums, repeatedly resisting the temptation to pull rank as the world’s most powerful mutant. Hours would pass before he rose stiffly from the uncomfortable chair and returned to the drab reality of Topeka or wherever they happened to be on their meandering trek west. 

“Here, listen to this,” Pyro called, his voice husky from an 18 hour day fuelled only by bad coffee. ‘The Neanderthals lived side by side with homo sapiens for a time, but the world proved too small for both early man and his superior.’” 

“Too technical,” Magneto answered without turning. He was engrossed in the headlines on mutantDawn.org. “I am speaking to the masses. The masses don’t know the history of human evolution.” 

“Fuck, you’re right,” Pyro muttered and resumed typing. 

“Now, _this_ is interesting,” Magneto said and the consequent silence made Pyro turn from his work in curiosity. Magneto gave him a penetrating gaze. “It seems you’ve published a novel, young man.” 

“I _what?!_ ” 

 

*** 

 

“You look tired, Charles,” Moira said, her pleasant Scottish accent pitched somewhere between concern and disapproval. 

“I’m sure you can’t tell over a video-chat window, Moira. I’m perfectly fine. Of course, we’re busy with the new school year…” 

“You can’t fool me, Charles. If there was one thing I learned during our oh-so-brief marriage, it was how to see through that maddening placid exterior you’ve perfected.” 

He sighed. “I’ll just say that lately I sometimes find myself wandering in an ethical fog without a lamp to guide me.” 

She nodded and he realized how well they did know each other, because in that simple nod from half a world away was an abundance of understanding and sympathy. She said, “I’m disturbed by the levels of anti-mutant violence in the United States.” 

“We’re not the European Union. Mutant rights are not yet guaranteed here. We may even lose ground before we gain any.” 

“Things aren’t always rosy on this side of the pond either, Charles. There have been violent anti-mutant demonstrations in Hungary and Poland. A mutant art festival in Paris had to be cancelled after a series of bomb threats.” 

“Now we’re just depressing each other.” 

“Oh dear. We’ll have to start telling knock-knock jokes to cheer up.” 

Charles laughed with a force that surprised him and was immediately hit with a wave of bittersweet nostalgia for a small apartment in Glasgow where they were happy for a while. She was right about him being tired. He would have to take control of this emotional tilt-a-whirl if he wanted to get any work done. “Remind me again why we divorced, Moira.” 

“I wasn’t a mutant and I wasn’t a man. Does that cover it?” 

“No, no. I think it was just bad timing. And I was too old for you.” _Self-indulgent regret, Charles…_ “Now, tell me about your new test subject,” he said, forcing the conversation back to the professional. 

“I found him languishing in a back room of a terrible little institution in Braemar. Forty-two years old, no higher brain functions. They’d been expecting him to die for 20 years, but he just hung on.” 

“And they only realized he was a mutant a month ago?” 

“That’s why I was called you. He is a mutant, but we detect no specific power. There has been no X-gene expression or any resultant transformation to his physiology. We’re calling him _tabula rasa._ He may help us prove Jean’s theory that a mutant’s particular manifestation is a combination of genes and developmental events.” 

“So, depending on events in the womb or during childhood, very different mutations might arise from the same genetic code.” 

“Or you might say that an individual’s ‘personality’ plays a part in determining his or her manifestation.” 

“Fascinating,” Charles replied. He heard a voice in his head. “Oh. Hold that thought, Moira. Come in, Ororo!” he called. The door opened and Storm walked in. He always appreciated those who could “knock” at his office door with their minds. 

“Am I interrupting, Charles? The students have stumbled across something you need to see.” 

“Just one moment, Ororo.” He turned to his screen. “Moira, I look forward to reading your report.” 

“I’ll send it to you first thing tomorrow. Remember what I said: take care of yourself.” 

He broke the connection with some reluctance. He wished there had been time for at least one knock-knock joke. 

Ororo came around behind his desk and leaned over him, typing on his keyboard. “www.saintinhell.net,” Charles read. _Saint in Hell?_ It was a simple site in grays and blacks with accents of orange and sky blue. “Castle In Exile,” he read out loud. “A novel by…” he paused, startled and looked up at Ororo. 

“That’s right. By St. John Allerdyce. The students are all over it!” 

Charles reached out with his mind. “Yes, I can feel the unity of focus. The buzz.” 

“I wish we could close down the school’s access to the site.” 

“That doesn’t sound like you, Ororo. You’re not usually the type to censor knowledge.” 

“I’m worried about morale. John’s defection hurt so many people here.” 

Charles scanned the first paragraph hungrily. _The volcano had grown active again, spewing sprays of ash across the island, Castle spent his days sweeping the pale grey misery off his porch and wondering if the blistering hatred in the mountain’s heart would spill over on him and his little world. Maybe it was what they all deserved._ A good opening. 

“Charles?” Ororo said, calling him back to reality. “What should we do?” 

“Perhaps Kitty can find out something,” he responded. “Isn’t it possible to trace web addresses somehow? Maybe we can find Magneto this way.” 

“I’ll go talk to her. What are you going to do?” 

His eyes returned to the screen. A thread of curiosity and pride tightened inside him. “Read,” he replied. 

 

*** 

 

Mystique wasn’t interested in the boy’s puerile offerings. “So this is what he spent three months doing,” she hissed into the air of the public library’s public computer room. She clicked on the orange button labeled “forum.” 

**_Crytal4Mation_**  
> _St. John, I love you! Your book has changed my life. Castle is me and I am alone on that island. Don’t ever stop writing!_

**_emRome93  
> _ ** _It doesn’t matter they say u are a terrorist. U have so much pain I can feel it in ur story. U have to fight for what u believe. I understand._

**_ptbarnum4HOPE  
> _ ** _Castle In Exile is a work in the outlaw tradition of Gide, Kerouac and Bukowski. Your prose is like raw meat on a black eye. If I was a vampire I would drink you._

“Stupid, stupid child!” Mystique cried, and annoyed library patrons turned to stare at the hulking teen with the small dark eyes and greasy hair whose large tongue slurred his speech into a stew. She glared angrily back with all the resentment of a tough inner-city life she had never lived. She wanted to tell them all what she thought of them and their insignificant lives, but that would just get her thrown out of the library. No, she could control herself. She could be patient. Magneto would soon grow tired of sharing the spotlight with that strutting peacock of a boy. Pyro was using his proximity to the great mutant for his own advancement. It was galling. 

She wished she could stop the bitter pangs of jealousy. How could Erik do this to her? Still, even separated from Magneto, she knew she was his most valuable and loyal lieutenant. Tomorrow she would follow her lead into the heart of the FDA office in Oakland. She would prove again that of all his champions, she most deserved to stand beside his throne when they ruled the world. 

She logged off the computer and trudged out of the library, snarling venom at the patrons who were glad to see her leave. Ten minutes later, she left the restroom of a nearby shopping mall as a 10 year old girl in a light cotton dress with a pattern of raspberries on the vine. The lightness of this new body lightened her mood, and she skipped along the sidewalk, letting her arms fly at her side. She sat herself in the grass of a local park and thought again about the next day’s mission. Getting through the security system would be easy. She could flawlessly duplicate the retinal patterns of a vacationing scientist. She knew the layout of the complex and where they kept the sample. Could it be true what her sources had said about the terrible work they were doing there? It was monstrous. Still, she had learned to believe in monsters. 

_You’ll see, Magneto. I won’t let you down._

 

*** 

 

“It makes absolutely no sense,” Kitty told David as they left lunch. “It’s a website! It has to respond to a “whois” query. It has to be registered with ICANN.” 

“And it’s not,” David replied. 

“And it’s not. John’s site is like a ghost ship on the ocean. It’s there, but where’s the crew? Where did it come from?” 

They went outside through the front door and sat on the steps, craning their necks upwards to watch a passing flight of geese. Time to head south again. September in Westchester was always a tease — giving the impression to all the new students that it was always summer at the School for Gifted Youngsters, their new mutant haven. But by the time they settled in, the first chill of fall would arrived and they would realize that school was still school, that there was no exemption from the trials of adolescence, and that they were still in the same world of hatred they had run from. 

“What do you think of the book?” David asked. 

She blew out an exasperated breath. “It’s good. It’s annoying. Talented, relentless, self-important.” 

“Just like John,” he replied with a laugh. 

“Just like John. I mean,” she said suddenly, as if the previous discussion had never ended, “ _Someone’s_ got to be hosting the site!” Just then Doug Ramsey wandered out from the hedge garden, head down in the book he was reading. A penny dropped. She sprung to her feet and stood in his path so that he almost collided with her before snapping his head up. She gave him no time to think. “So, Doug, how could you put a site online without anyone being able to track the host?” 

He answered automatically. “Well, there are a bunch of ways. For instance, Jones and I have developed an alternate sort of Internet bandwidth, if you will.” 

“So, for instance, you could host John’s website there.” His mouth dropped open and Kitty smiled in triumph. 

_“Ani lo yodea,”_ he stammered and backed up, changing gears and walking a wide path around her. 

“Doug!” 

_“Je n’ sais rien!”_ He began running up the steps into the school. _“Semmi! Nada!”_

David came up beside her. “Should we tell someone? Mr. Summers?” 

Kitty turned on him, crunching the gravel of the driveway under her shoe. “You better not, Alleyne.” 

“Kitty! Pyro is a member of the Brotherhood! He’s a felon!” 

She shoved him in the chest. “And I’m practically an X-Man! You will not say one damn word!” 

 

*** 

 

_Welcome to Cutline, new captions for today’s news images. We begin today’s program with a fascinating story that joins the worlds of political action, national security and the arts. This week, an untraceable rogue website appeared on the Internet featuring a novel by a mutant named St. John Allerdyce. “Castle in Exile” is a violent fantasy tale of a young man in search of his lost love. The author of the novel is a wanted_ mutant terrorist _, implicated in several high profile attacks in this country. A hit counter on the novel’s website shows an exponential growth in readers, and the forum indicates that there is a_ growingand enthusiastic _young fan base._

_To discuss the book and its implications for national security are Ryan Dennison with the group Friends of Humanity, an organization that seeks to raise awareness of the_ dangers _of_ mutant integration _, and Carmen Batiste, a freelance culture writer whose syndicated reviews appear regularly in independent newspapers around the country. Carmen, what did you think of “Castle in Exile?”_

– _I thought it was terrific! It’s one of those novels that makes you drop your jaw a lot and go, “Wow! Did he really just say that?” It’s violent and disturbing sometimes, but really beautiful too. Allerdyce is apparently only 18, and the book has that funky looseness you get in early first novels._

– _I guess what you mean by “funky” is provocative mutant propaganda that makes heroes out of criminals and seeks to make mutant antisocial behavior “cool”._

_So you think the book has a political agenda, Ryan?_

– _Absolutely. The book’s hero is a mutant, probably a stand-in for Allerdyce, who kills without remorse to get what he wants._

– _That’s ridiculous! How is the hero a mutant?_

– _He talks to animals! A shark, a-a squirrel or something —_

– _It’s a fantasy novel! Anthropomorphized animals are just a feature of the genre! Castle might be a mage or… or a ranger figure, but he’s not supposed to represent modern mutants!_

_And I should point out that none of the alleged crimes perpetrated by Allerdyce have resulted in death._

– _Look, this is an alien creature in our midst who wants to destroy us! I can’t believe we’re seriously discussing whether he’s the next Shakespeare. And now mutant terrorists have found ways to bypass Internet regulations! We’re dealing with dangerous forces here and it’s time we saw them for what they are._

 

Doug chewed nervously on his thumbnail, prying off a piece which he dropped carefully in the overflowing garbage can. 

“Do you think we made a mistake posting the book?” he asked. 

Jones giggled, watching the TV, blinking to bring up the site’s counter which was going up moment by moment. 

“No way,” he said. “This is more fun than the time we reprogrammed the Sony DRM code to auto-seed content on torrent sites.” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby could feel the rumble of the bass before he even got to the gym. He was hurrying, almost late. And why? He had been obsessing about his fucking hair. Today of all days. In another hour, he’d be covered in sweat, running and rolling in smoke and mud and God knows what; and yet he had spent 15 minutes gelling, poking, shaping. BOOM BA-BOOM, went the bass. Or was it his heart? 

He swung open the door of the gym and looked in. He was the last of his team mates to arrive. Peter and Kitty were on their mats, warming up. Like him, they wore fresh X-sweats. Soon, they would all be changing into something altogether more serious. Jubilee, sitting on the floor beside Rogue, wore a cast on her right leg. Their squad leader had been absolutely fierce at practice last week, and they had all held their breaths as she leaped from the training apparatus, twirled through the air, shooting sparks at imaginary enemies… And it would have been a really impressive landing if she had made it. Now she was sidelined for the next six weeks. As Bobby passed them, he heard Jubilee saying, “You have to get in close to the targets, Rogue. Behind Pete or Bobby. Once you’re close, you’re lethal.” Then her voice was lost under the music. 

Once inside the gym, the thump of the bass had been joined by the higher colors of cymbals and shimmering guitars. Horns chimed in with their opinions at odd intervals. 

“Sam,” Bobby shouted. “What is this?” 

Sam Guthrie stood behind his full DJ station, set up at one end of the gym. He wore a knit cap with his headphones over top, one ear on, one ear off. He leaned forward and spoke into his microphone with an accent that was a strange amalgam of his native Kentucky and some dark, smoky club in Brooklyn. “Bobby, my brother, today is your big day. I thought I would offer some funky inspiration to the warriors.” 

Bobby rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help smiling. Ever since that courier had walked through the mansion the other day, Sam had been grandmaster of the funky stuff. Bobby moved to a mat and joined the others in stretching. It _was_ a big day. Scott and Ororo were going to take them through a battle simulation in the Danger Room. “Bigger and more challenging than anything you’ve faced before,” Cyclops had promised earlier that week. The new X-Men understood what it meant. It was time to show what they’d learned and prove they were ready for real-world action. The thought was more than a little intimidating. He watched Jubilee move over to Pete, bending to give him advice. She might be sitting this one out, but she was still their team captain. 

“Funk music is about chaos and order,” Sam announced through the big speakers. “Listen to the downbeat: One! Everybody in the band proclaims it loud and clear. A foundation. A common starting place. The kick and snare lay down the law, solid as a house. That’s you, Jubes. Nothing stops you and nothing stops the beat.” She gave him a skeptical look as she moved over to talk to Kitty. 

“And then the rest of the band starts playing,” Sam continued, and as the ‘one’ came round again, he grunted a guttural, “Hunh! Listen to the bass. BOM-BOM-daBOM! That’s you, Pete. A deep, smooth figure that rises from the depths and holds out its hands to the world. Nothing wrong here as long as Mr. Bass is doing his job.” 

Pete smiled shyly as he bent his forehead down to his straightened leg. 

“Kitty, hear that? You’re the hi-hat. Cha-katta-katta-chakata-ka! You’re that crazy pulse that runs through the beat, fast and agile, walking through the walls of the song.” 

Kitty, bent backwards in bridge pose, jumped to standing, shaking her hips and rolling forward into a somersault. She bowed and retook her mat. They were all grinning now. 

“Rogue, baby,” Sam continued, scratching a counter-rhythm on a turntable. “You’re the organ. Whoooosshhhh. Smooth when we need it, hitting hard and dirty when you gotta.” 

Rogue shouted over to Bobby. “Is that a compliment? It’s kinda hard to tell…” 

Bobby looked up and Jubilee was at his side. He imagined how frustrated she must be to be excluded from the day’s events; but she was pure professional as she sat on the floor by his mat. 

“Remember, Bobby,” she said, close to his ear. “You’re sometimes so busy watching out for everyone else, you forget to watch out for yourself. And careful of your left flank. You always leave it exposed.” 

He nodded. He was looking for some way to reply, to express his gratitude to her for all her dedication, when Sam’s voice called out over the music. “Bobby, my man, don’t think I forgot about you!” he said. “You are the horn section. The horniest horns. And you know what they say? They say BAP! BADDA! BAP! BOWWWW! You know what that means, right?” 

Bobby shook his head, unable to suppress the giggles that were bubbling out of him. 

“Oh, you _gotta_ know!” 

“I don’t know! Tell me, Sam!” 

“It means ‘Look out, fuckers, the New X-Men are coming!’” And for good measure, he shouted, “Huhn! Come on, on the ‘one,’ I want to hear y’all go ‘HUNH!’” 

He raised his arms like the funkiest conductor in the world, and on cue, they all yelled: “HUNH!!” They were on their feet now, jiving, sliding around each other and through each other, even Jubilee, swaying carefully on her cast. 

“Hear that? Have mercy! That’s the _one_. That’s the meaning of funk music right there, boys and girls. We are family. We all take off from the same place. We slide into the world, each of us with something special to say — some particular power. And we do our thing, BOM-BOM-daBOM, katta-chatta-chak, whoooooooosh!!! BAP BAP! But no matter how far we stray, how out there we stretch the groove, we’re all together again…” 

He scratched a break and then brought it down hard. “…On the one!” 

As they made their way to the sub-basement elevators, they were laughing, brimming over with the injection of energy Sam had given them. _Bring it on, Cyclops,_ Bobby thought. _We can take it!_ But the trepidation started to return as they walked down the cold steel corridors towards the equipment room. The four students stood in front of the wall niches where their new uniforms hung. It had been so exciting to be measured for the black smart-leather outfits two weeks ago. Bobby had felt appreciated and mature. But now, as they dressed separately in the male and female locker rooms, he felt the weight of the uniform — the responsibility and the danger it carried in its daunting, black bulk. 

“Ready, Bobby?” Pete asked, putting a big reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

“I don’t know, am I?” 

Pete nodded definitively, and that felt pretty good. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” Bobby said. 

They met the girls out in the corridor, and together the four young X-men marched to the Danger Room. When they arrived, the door was closed. Leaning nonchalantly on the hatch’s big ‘X’, in jeans and a wife-beater, was the Wolverine. He was trimming a cigar, letting the leaves fall to the immaculate floor. 

“So, you babies ready to wet your diapers?” he said. “It’s gonna be _bad_ in there, hoo boy. We’re talking post-apocalyptic urban warfare. We’re talking rockets and flame throwers. We’re talking giant fucking mutant-hunting robots! All cooked up by the sickest fucks in the US government!” 

“Okay, Wolverine, enough with the spoilers,” said Storm, coming down the hall from the locker room. “You’ll all be fine, I know it. You’re ready for this. Just remember: whatever happens, act as a team.” 

“Wait,” said Bobby. “Where’s Scott… I mean, Cyclops?” 

“Scooter’s taking a pass. I’m his replacement,” Wolverine said with an evil grin. 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean? He said he’d be here!” He felt betrayed. If they could all overcome their fear, couldn’t Scott get over… over all his… _issues_ and join them? Didn’t he want to see what they could do? 

Storm had her business face on. In the classroom or in private, she might have offered more sympathy, but today she was their commander. “Plans change, Iceman. We adapt and move on. As a team.” 

“Well then, why is he letting the team down?!” 

Rogue put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “Sugar, he’ll be here next time. You know what he’s going through —” 

But he was furious. “Bullshit. I’m not going to let him get away with this!” And to his own surprise, he was suddenly running back towards the elevators. He heard Storm call after him, but he didn’t care. Scott Summers never allowed his students to take the easy way out. Why should he let himself? 

The Assistant Headmaster’s office was empty, so Bobby ran up to the teachers’ quarters, rapping loudly on the door of Scott’s suite. Students passing by looked at Bobby with wide-eyed awe as he stood there in his X-Men uniform, but he wasn’t in the mood to be an icon. He was about to knock again when the door suddenly opened. Bobby looked hard at Scott, at the mess he’d let himself become, and he was pissed off. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be downstairs leading us?” 

Scott’s face was always hard to read. Not only because of his impenetrable glasses, but because he was an expert at controlling his emotions. This time, Bobby could see the effort. He could see the little twitches at the side of his mouth and the wrinkling of the brow beneath the messy hair. 

“I’m not up to it, Bobby. Storm will be able to assess you.” 

“And Wolverine? You’re going to let goddamn _Logan_ take your job from you?” Bobby asked and pushed his way past Scott into the room. 

“Hey, mister,” snapped the teacher. “I don’t remember inviting you in!” 

Bobby turned a slow circuit around the room, taking in the unmade bed, the clothes strewn across every surface, the shoebox of photographs overturned in the middle of the carpet. “Look at this place! How could you let it become such a mess?” 

Scott closed the door loudly. “Not your business, Mr. Drake.” 

Bobby turned to him, and his heart was aching. “What would Jean have said if she saw you like this, Scott?” 

Scott wasn’t hiding anything now. “You! Stop it right there, I won’t have you… have you…” 

“It’s been a year! We need you. _I_ need you.” Bobby felt scared of the words he was saying, but he couldn’t stop. “When I came to this school, you were the one who busted my lazy ass and made me learn responsibility. You were the one who told me how every day we need to get up and try to be a better person. Every day, we try to make the world a better place.” 

Scott sat heavily on his bed, staring at the floor, his breath heavy, his fists tight. “I can’t.” 

“Well, try!” Bobby barked. He crouched on the floor in front of Scott, forcing the teacher to see him. “The world isn’t getting any better, Scott. Mutants are in trouble. The students are scared. Xavier is scared; I can see it in his eyes.” 

Scott’s voice was all but inaudible. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand what it means.” He looked up at Bobby, clamping his teeth down against the tears. “When I lost her, I lost everything. Before Jean, I was nothing. I was this stupid, angry kid with no direction, no sense of what I could be. Jean… Jean was my lodestone.” 

Bobby didn’t know what to do or say. Their positions were reversed — man and boy — and seeing his mentor so hurt and broken was unbearable. More than anything, it made him angry. 

“Don’t tell me this, Scott,” he said in a low voice. “Just… just get dressed and… come watch me. I’ve been working so fucking hard. I’ve become a fighter… _for you!_ ” 

“No. Not for me —” 

“Yes!” Bobby rose to his feet, towering over the shrunken man. “And don’t you fucking tell me about loss. I lost someone, too!” 

“What? You don’t mean… You can’t possibly mean…” 

“John! Just say his name, for fuck’s sake! What do you think it’s been like, losing him? It’s worse that you losing Jean! ’Cause I know John’s still alive, still out there somewhere; but I can’t be with him. Not ever again!” 

“I will not let you compare… I… John Allerdyce is a criminal and a malcontent. He was a terrible influence on you. He was nothing but —” 

“He was my boyfriend!” Bobby shouted, and saying the words out loud was like letting go of an anchor he hadn’t known he had been carrying all these years. It was terrifying to be this light, like he might blow away and never land again. “He was my boyfriend, okay? My _lover!_ And you pushed us apart.” 

Scott stood and marched for the door. “I won’t listen to this.” He pulled it open. “Get out of here.” 

A cold shot of fear passed through Bobby — with the door open, anyone could hear what he was saying. _Shout it from de rooftops,_ Remy had told him, so Bobby went on. “I loved him. And now he’s gone. If you… if we had really been there for John, maybe he’d be downstairs in the Danger Room now, fighting beside his friends, instead of with Magneto.” 

Scott was a statue. A tear ran down from below his glasses and he turned his head away as Bobby passed him and headed into the hallway. 

Bobby was almost at the stairs when Scott shouted. “Bobby!” Bobby turned and looked back. “I hear her voice. She calls me. I-I tell her to go away. I tell her I need to get my life back, but… She keeps calling. She won’t let me go.” 

Bobby was trembling. The unbearableness. “Scott… I have to go. They’re waiting for me.” 

The teacher pushed his glasses onto his forehead, wiping the tears from his tightly closed eyes. He retreated into his room and closed the door. 

At dinner that night, Bobby learned that Scott had climbed aboard his motorcycle and left the school “on an indefinite leave.” 

 

*** 

 

_He is coming._

_No! I have to stop him!_

_Too late, Jeangrey. You are done now; you and your man. This is no longer the time of love. It is the time of the Phoenix._


	36. The Last Flowers of Fall (X3)

They announced his name, and right away his mind said, “uh, maybe not.” His body, however, decided to go with the plan and he jumped to his feet. As he moved to the front of the depressingly institutional auditorium, he thought of the chemistry test he should have been studying for last night instead of preparing this speech. What would his parents say if his science grades fell? How would he get into med school? All eyes were on him; his face felt hot; but here he was, so he just marched to the podium as confidently as he could. 

The audience regarded him warily. Was it his appearance (his piercings were multiplying and his Mohawk was again tall enough to glue up into spikes) or his topic? Both, probably. He knew he would have to work hard to win them over. He cleared his throat and chanted into the microphone, his voice reverberating flatly against the acoustic tiles on the ceiling and the closed faces in the chairs: 

_“‘I was the one who got dropped / Shut out, banished and locked away! / The knife that did me in, I still carry to this day!’_

“Members of the district council, my name is Michael Haddad. I am a senior at Lincoln High. Thank you for inviting me here to speak to you. If there is one message I want to deliver today, it is that mutants aren’t some mysterious group who are out there somewhere, in some other city, on some CNN news report. Mutants are my classmates, my friends, my family. 

“As members of the Massachusetts education community, I want you to remember something. As you speak to colleagues and friends over coffee about the ‘mutant threat,’ about registration and other initiatives to limit the rights of this group of Americans, remember that mutants are also your students.” 

He felt like his delivery had started a little stiff, but now he was on a roll. He brought up statistics from Andi Murakami’s studies of mutant youth; he related anecdotes of discrimination from friends at school and those he danced with at the Spiderhole. Today’s talk was the fourth or fifth he’d given since moving back to Boston, and he was becoming better at it. He remembered not to stay buried in his notes, but to look different members of the audience in the eye. Some seemed captivated by his ideas, and many looked away, embarrassed. Because they disagreed? Because they felt bad about things they’d done or said to mutants? 

“People think we should fear the harm that mutants can do,” he concluded. “I say we should welcome the good they will bring to our community. If we reach out now and let our mutant students know that they are welcome, I believe they will not grow up to be Magnetos, but members of society whose special gifts make them valuable citizens. 

“It is my hope that teachers and administrators like you can work with students like me to make sure that no mutant feels like the kid in that song: 

“ _‘Rejected! Crossing bridges in the land of the forgotten! Rejected!’_ Thank you.” 

Afterwards, he shook a lot of hands. Smiling, professional faces wished him well; others with bigger smiles suggested he couldn’t grasp the complexities of the issues. No one actually offered to help. He felt like a David who couldn’t even get past Goliath’s secretary. 

He wandered out alone into the lobby of the district educational building where the very air seemed to scream, “Nothing will ever change if we can help it.” He saw the Deputy Commissioner of Education striding towards the exit, and hurried to catch up with her. 

“Ms. Klayborn, have you had a chance to consider my proposal for a mutant student bill of rights?” 

For a second she looked annoyed at having been caught before she could effect her escape, but then the professional smile — perennial camouflage of the carnivorous bureaucrat — spread across her well-powdered face. 

“Ah yes, Michael,” she replied slickly. “A daring proposal, indeed. I will discuss it with my board and get back to you soon. Next week, probably.” 

“Great. I’ll call your office if I haven’t heard from you, okay?” 

The malice peeked out from beneath the smile. “Anyway, thank you so much for speaking here today. And your, um, poem was very… energetic.” 

He was left standing alone, biting back words of frustration. He felt like a fraud of a punk, not even able to scream his anger in the face of hypocrisy. A short girl in a long coat and tweed cap sidled up beside him and tucked an arm around his waist. The cap was festooned with buttons from new and vintage punk bands. Under it, fluorescent red streaks shot through honey hair that formed a frame for her large, clever eyes. Mike leaned down and kissed her, feeling the ring in her lip slide across his lower lip. 

“How bad was it, Twitch?” he asked. 

“Don’t fish, Mish. It was excellent and you know it. Brilliant choice to use the Rancid lyric. Oh! I found a killer video of ‘Rejected’ on YouTube. Live in Strassbourg. So good.” 

“Awesome. Xeno says they’re total sellouts, but he is the essence of unforgiving. Anyway, it doesn’t matter how good or not good I was. You should have heard the bullshit they fed me after. If no one is willing to admit their own bigotry, how are we supposed to get through to —” 

Twitch’s phone rang, the ring tone an orgasmic porn moan. “One sec, babe. Yeah? Wait, what? Slow down!” 

And in that second, Mike’s cell rang, too. The coincidence sent a weird chill up his spine. An unsubstantiated conviction formed in his head that something had just gone seriously off the rails in the universe. He checked the caller ID and answered. 

“Rayen, what’s up?” 

Rayen had been Jubilee’s best friend when his former girlfriend still lived in Boston. The fact that Rayen and Mike had both been so unceremoniously dumped by the girl had drawn them closer together. It had been almost two years since they had all fought together against a gang of mutant-hating thugs on Halloween. Since then, Rayen had grown from the shy, weird girl who was tormented by bullies, into the strong, weird girl who people respected and even emulated. 

He knew right away there was trouble; her voice was so shrill and loud, he had to pull the phone a few inches from his ear. “Shit, Michael, it’s all over the news! Todger says it must be a government plot to wipe us out, but what if it’s legit? I mean, this is terrible. I keep thinking of Megan’s beautiful wings. What if she goes for it? You mean no one will ever see her make psychedelic dust again? I couldn’t stand it!” 

“Hold it, I don’t understand…” He managed to slow Rayen down and make her spool out the facts in order. The gravity of the situation quickly sank in. He looked over at Twitch whose eyes were wide with horror. Simultaneously, they said to their respective phone partners: 

“A mutant cure?!” 

 

The Spiderhole wouldn’t open until 8 o’clock that night, so Corman’s Pizza became the default action center. Mike urged Davey Corman — who had always welcomed even obvious mutants at the restaurant he’d inherited from his father and grandfather — to go into production overtime because he’d be selling a lot of slices over the next few hours. It didn’t take him, Twitch, and Rayen long to get the word out by phone, Facebook and Twitter, and soon Corman’s was filling up with distraught young mutants and their supporters. 

“This is totally organized,” Xeno Evil raged in fury, digging his penknife into the table. “Racists and capitalists standing arm in arm to wipe us out.” 

Mike grabbed his wrist. “Hey, don’t carve up Davey’s furniture. He’s on our side.” 

Rayen took a big bite of pizza and shook her green-tipped dreadlocks. “But he’s right, Mike. When do they ever make a new drug available the same day it’s announced?” On her cheeks and forehead, her power-generated tattoo read “DON’T. CURE. ME.” 

Mike peered around at the anxious faces. They were looking to him and their other unappointed leaders for direction. He didn’t know what to tell them. He wasn’t even a mutant! How could he know what they were feeling? 

The bell on the door rang as Todger pushed his way through the crowd on his crutches. When stars were visible in the sky, his mutation allowed him to float several inches off the ground and glide along in silent elegance. By day, he hobbled on legs atrophied by the same X-gene. They made room for him at the “head table.” 

Twitch leaned towards him. “What did your friend say?” 

“You know how they closed St. Agnes’ last year? The old cancer hospital? Well, it’s already being retrofitted as a cure clinic. Set to open by the 15th.” 

The room erupted. Mike understood the seriousness of this report. It wasn’t just a curious news item; the cure was about to take on a physical presence — a living, breathing behemoth — right in their city. 

Xeno pounded his fist on the table. “But that means they’ve known about this for weeks. Months! It’s all a fucking setup!” 

“How much will it cost?” a girl sitting by the far wall called. 

“Yeah, will it be covered through our parents’ HMOs?” 

Grimly, Todger told them, “It’s going to be free to anyone who tests positive for the X-gene. Anyone who wants it.” 

And that was yet more serious. _Free treatments in America?_ Mike thought. _What could it be but a coordinated plot?_

“But what fucking coward would even take it?” Xeno said, and for the first time, the room grew quiet. Mike looked around and he knew. Sure, why wouldn’t they at least consider it? He remembered being called “towelhead” in his first week of high school as soon as he stepped from his dad’s car, right after his foreign-sounding dad called out, “Respect your teachers, Michael!” _Yeah, Towelhead! Be a good little terrorist!_ they shouted. His skin had suddenly felt so dark, his breath full of lemon and parsley. Would he have taken a cure if they’d offered him one? One treatment and you’ll be like everyone else. 

And he knew they would be there on the 15th, waving signs in protest, screaming: “Mutation isn’t a disease!” But he also knew that some of the kids in this room would be on the other side of the barricades, lining up to be normal. 

 

*** 

 

The rec room was packed to bursting, with nearly every student at the School for Gifted Youngsters present and accounted for. Jubilee had to keep a sharp eye out for clumsy boys who might stumble over the cast that still imprisoned her broken leg. Maybe she should have retreated to a safer spot, but fuck it; the corner of the couch was hers and she wasn’t giving it up without a fight. 

“Hey, Josh,” she called to a golden-skinned freshman who was making his way across the room. “You gonna heal my leg, or do I have to send my New X-Men after you?” 

The boy looked panicked at the thought. “I can’t, Jubilee! Dr. Selvananthan says that I don’t know enough yet. If I lost control of the cell growth, I could give you bone _cancer!_ ” 

She gave him a dismissive wave. “Wimp,” she proclaimed and turned back to the TV which David was turning up for the news report, as infuriating a broadcast as she’d ever seen. They all watched in tense silence right through the final words: 

_“The Food and Drug Administration has called the cure a giant step forward that will ease the suffering of mutants who, it is estimated, number as many as a million in the United States.”_

“I’m not fuckin’ _sufferin’_ , asshole!” Sam shouted at the TV as the station went to commercial. 

“Sam!” Ororo, called from her place at the back of the room. Jubilee smirked. 

“Sorry, Ms. Monroe,” Sam said, embarrassed. “But it makes me so mad!” 

Keller chimed in. “Me too. Are they saying I’m a disease?” 

Ororo walked to the front of the room and David muted the TV. “That’s a good question. What are the assumptions being made in this speech?” 

“That mutants have something wrong with them,” said Clarice. 

Kitty added, “It assumes that any mutant would automatically want a cure.” 

Ororo nodded. “Good. Remember, no text is neutral, even if it presents itself that way. Only by identifying the point of view can you truly debate its meaning.” 

The news was back. 

_“Our organization welcomes this breakthrough and the relief it promises…”_

Loud exclamations and jeers filled the room, followed by a chorus of shushing. The text identified the man as a spokesperson for “Mutant Refuge Services,” an organization Jubilee had never heard of. 

_“…and we look forward to working with the authorities for speedy implementation of the cure.”_

“Where did they find that white-bread hypocrite?” David asked. 

“I think it’s a set up,” Sam said. “He’s probably not even a mutant.” 

Jubilee’s peripheral vision suddenly filled up with Peter Rasputin. He leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “You okay? Can I get you anything?” 

Jubilee felt obliged to roll her eyes. “Jesus, Pete, don’t treat me like a complete cripple.” Despite her objections, she was touched by his consideration. 

He gave a small nod over his shoulder. “Look at Rogue,” he whispered. 

The girl was sitting on the edge of her chair, draped in a black shawl. Lately, her makeup had been immaculate, lovely, cold as ice. Bobby was beside her, but not really with her. She was staring, staring at the TV with an intensity that could melt glaciers. 

Jubilee whispered back. “What’s with her, these days? She looks like a cover model for Vampire Glam Weekly. I know they stopped tearing each other new assholes, but I don’t think Bobby’s making her very happy.” 

Peter shook his. “To me, it looks like she wants that cure.” 

“Bullshit,” Jubilee hissed. “No one in their right mind… I mean, she’s almost an X-Man!” 

“Okay, people!” Ororo called to the room. “Dinner time. Professor Xavier will talk to us all afterwards, and we’ll be able to continue this discussion.” Everyone scrambled to their feet and headed noisily for the doors. 

“You need a hand?” Pete asked her and she shot him a threatening look. He smiled and raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll save you a place at our table.” 

The fact of the matter was she should have let him help. She was getting sick and tired of lumbering around like a buffalo. She had sores on her side where the crutches dug in and she could feel her finely toned body growing slack and stiff. She decided to give herself one more minute before she dragged her way down the hall. She watched the muted news, vaguely amused by the earnest dumb show. Suddenly a name she recognized, a mug shot over the anchorman’s shoulder. She dived for the remote, tumbling off the couch and dragging herself over to the side table where David had left it. 

_“The mob leader, arraigned on charges of racketeering and tax evasion, had been released on $4,000,000 bail over the protests of the DA’s office. Now it appears their fears have been realized. We take you to the federal court building in Los Angeles where…”_

Jubilee pulled herself back up on the couch, cursing as her cast dragged her leg back to earth with a whack. 

_“Cassius Kwan was last seen Thursday when he appeared for a brief pre-trial procedural hearing. No one knows when he might have skipped bail or where he has gone. It would not be easy for him to board a commercial airplane, but fears are he will slip through the borders and vanish off into the world to live on what might be vast cash resources.”_

Her heart raced in her chest. Since his arrest, she had followed every news story and spent countless hours staring at the familiar face as he grinned at the cameras outside the courthouse as if he had nothing to lose. The man had aged, but there was no question. And now, the fools had lost him! 

She was still sitting there 20 minutes later when the segment was done and cure coverage filled the screen again (already the big story of the week had its own logo and theme music). Pete found her there, and silently handed her a plate of food which she silently accepted. She could guess what he was thinking: _She wants to fight the cure bastards, and she’s pissed because she can’t._ And he should have been right; that’s what she should have been focused on. But if ghosts were so easy to ignore, no one would bother telling ghost stories around the campfire, would they? 

 

*** 

  


It was all John could do to keep from puking up the tasteless slop he’d just devoured with the rest of the Brotherhood down in the canteen of their new headquarters. He stood in the doorway with mounting anger, watching Magneto smack his lips and actually chortle as he worked his way through his pressed duck and sipped on his Alsace Willm Gewurtztraminer. The elegant repast looked out of place in the large, austere chamber of polished steel that served as Magneto’s office. So, too did the short, round man in the chef’s hat and apron who stepped forward periodically to pour more wine. The Master of Magnetism seemed to think he was in the finest restaurant in Paris, not 30 feet underground in a Northern California forest. 

“Where do we suddenly have money for you to hire a personal chef?” John asked, unable to hide his resentment. “If the Brotherhood is so rich, why did you and me have to stay in such cruddy dives all the way out here? I mean, we were driving some crap-ass Dodge, and now you suddenly have a Benz and a fucking chauffeur!” 

Magneto wiped his mouth delicately with linen and smiled smugly at his fiery amanuensis. “One of our generous donors came through with some much-needed funds.” 

“We have donors?” 

“Pyro, my lad, there are many who wish to see us succeed in our goals — wealthy mutants who know they will hold a place of honor in our new world order.” 

“I bet they’d be delighted to know how you’re spending their money.” 

“If I am to rule, let me act like a ruler. You’d be surprised how much loyalty I command just by playing the part.” His eyes narrowed and something acid crept into his smile. “Now that you’re a world-famous novelist, you too might learn how to use celebrity to your advantage.” 

John actually blushed, and the loss of control made him even madder. “I had nothing to do with it. Two of Xavier’s puppies put my book online without permission.” 

Magneto’s smile died on his face. His heavy steel chair slid backwards magnetically as he rose to his feet, pulling on not only his cape, but his unmatched hauteur. John felt a ripple of fear. 

“Nonetheless, Pyro, your work is garnering attention,” Magneto said, his voice resonating against the steel walls. “I worry that your loyalty is compromised. Now that you have acolytes of your own, would you still lay down your life for me? If not, you are of no use.” 

John’s voice was low and choked. “You know I would, Magneto. I serve you and your cause. That novel is… nothing.” 

Magneto held him in his steely gaze a moment before speaking, and John felt that the real test was happening now. With Magneto, you were never assured a passing grade. 

“Good. St. John Allerdyce has no place in the future; remember that. But the name Pyro will command respect and fear. Now, I need you to drive out to the crossroads and meet our new recruit. Give her the tour and then bring her to me in two hours.” Magneto turned and walked towards the wall. A small wave of his hand and a heavy plate of steel moved aside to reveal his bed chamber beyond. 

“Can I take the Benz?” John called after him. 

“You will take the jeep,” Magneto replied as the wall closed behind. “And I don’t want it dented!” 

John climbed the steps and exited into the filtered green light of the forest through the hidden doorway. The guards on duty turned stern faces his way (sometimes the sheer proliferation of stern faces in the Brotherhood was fucking hilarious), but when they saw who it was they backed off, even though protocol demanded a challenge and a password response from anyone entering or leaving. John gave them a contemptuous sneer and marched into the woods. 

He was an object of fear and envy among his fellow soldiers. That was fucking hilarious, too. No one fucked with Pyro, because Pyro had Magneto’s ear. He knew he was also rumored to be Magneto’s lover; he did nothing to quash that rumor even though it wasn’t true. “Use celebrity to your advantage,” Magneto had said and he was right. Of course, after that, their conversation had become altogether more hypothetical. _Would you lay down your life for me?_

Uh, no? Definitely not. But then why was he even here? Did he believe Magneto should be mutant ruler of Earth? Sure, why not? He’d be a narcissistic despot just like any other. He’d abuse power and people would suffer. What else was new? So, why be here instead of at Xavier’s? 

John came to the clearing where the vehicles were kept, barking an order to the attendant who quickly cleared the leafy camouflage from the jeep and handed him the keys. Why be with the Brotherhood? The answer was simple. Here they didn’t fuck with him. And furthermore, the Brotherhood was actually accomplishing shit! Xavier tut-tutted and met with the same heads of state who were manufacturing anti-mutant pharmaceuticals. The Brotherhood blew up supply trucks and made key scientists disappear. If John had learned one thing in his life, it was how to pick the winning team. 

_That novel is…nothing_ . Another questionable statement. He had given up writing once, burning up his puerile poems to focus on the fight for mutant supremacy. But he hadn’t been able to stop for long. Castle in Exile had demanded to be written, and now it was being read. Despite his annoyance with Doug and Jones for uploading it without permission, he was more than a little pleased. Sometimes, he’d lie in his bunk at night and imagine some kid — maybe one who just got fucked with by some abusive parent or teacher— reading his words and feeling stronger. 

_St. John Allerdyce has no place in the future_ . Maybe. But sometimes John worried that Pyro was just a made-up name stuck on a dime-a-dozen punk attitude… and all the future in the world wouldn’t make him any more real. 

He parked the jeep and walked the last 100 meters to the road. The bus let passengers off about a mile to the south, and anyone coming to the Brotherhood compound had to hoof it to this secret meeting place. He only had to wait about 10 minutes before he heard her boots tapping against the blacktop. From his hiding place, he noted with amusement that her own badass attitude looked a little fuzzy at the edges. No one was ever too confident when coming to meet Magneto. 

“Callisto!” he called, standing up. She dropped into a crouch, turning a fierce face his way. John fingered the control on his left palm that operated the fire controls on his right. He was stupid to have startled a powerful mutant like that. He shouted, “Stand down! It’s me, Pyro!” 

She straightened and walked towards him. “Ha. Glad I didn’t take you out,” she said as she stepped off the road and came to stand beside him. “I’m a bit tense today. And I hate dressing like a human!” She held up her arms and made a face at the bulky sweater she wore. “I want back in my skin.” Pyro resisted rolling his eyes. She was from Omega Revolt, and they always made a big deal about your mutant name, about dressing like _homo superior_. 

He checked the road to make sure they were unobserved and said, “Come with me.” As he drove her back to the compound, he told her some of the basic security rules and the day’s passwords. “Until you’ve been here for at least two weeks, you won’t be able to enter any red-flagged area without permission from a team leader.” He had to shout a bit above the wind that whistled through the open vehicle. 

“Such as you,” she said, looking over at him. His first impression was that this was a dig, but no, she was just figuring her place in the hierarchy. “So, is the Brotherhood going to accept me, or am I going to have break a few heads to get anywhere?” 

“Don’t let all the posturing assholes intimidate you. We have rules and a chain of command, so if someone fucks with you, you tell a team leader. Such as me.” He gave her a wink. “Everyone’s uptight when they get here. Just remember, we’re all on the same side.” He wasn’t sure what was moving him to be so nice to her. Maybe it was the persistent memory of his first days in Westchester, his first days as the outsider. 

“And what about him?” 

“Magneto? Hey, he picked you for the Brotherhood, right? That means he respects you. He’s even bringing you here ahead of your buddies. Uh, Arclight, right? And, um…” 

“Kid Omega.” They hit a rut in the road and jerked in their seats. Both held on with admirable aplomb, and they exchanged smirks. But then the tension settled again over Callisto’s face. “I just want Magneto to know that I can be really valuable to him. I want to knock his socks off.” 

“Heh, and they’re expensive socks. Listen, don’t think too far ahead now. Just take it one day at a time.” As soon as he said it, something about the phrase bugged him. He furrowed his brow and turned his head away. Then he knew. It was straight from the lame orientation spiel made to every quivering new student at Xavier’s… _by Bobby fucking Drake_. John was channeling the jerk who had turned his life upside-down. 

All at once, he felt violated by memory. From day to day, he worked hard to keep Drake at a mental distance, because every time he let that idiot into his head, his body reacted with palpable longing. Those blue eyes would dance in front of him, the feel of the peach fuzz on Bobby’s ass would seem almost within reach. Pyro, lieutenant to Magneto himself, would cease to exist and only some stupid romantic fantasy of fire and ice would seem real. Fuck! He was damned if he was going to start acting like mascot of the Brotherhood! He spun the jeep around a sharp corner, and Callisto had to grab the roll bar to keep from falling out. 

They pulled to a jerking stop in the vehicle area, kicking up sod, and the attendant ran to meet them. Callisto said, “Okay, you’re right. I just have to focus and get my shit together. I mean, what do I have to worry about? I was an area commander for Omega Revolt! I have my tattoo, I have my skin —” 

“Hey! You want some advice, lady?” John’s sudden fury caught her by surprise. He felt a cruel satisfaction at the way her mouth fell open. “Magneto doesn’t want to hear about Omega Revolt. Your little Mickey Mouse action club is a fucking joke. And he doesn’t like tattoos. Remember that.” He jumped out of the jeep, throwing the keys on the ground in front of the attendant and storming off. 

“Pyro!” Callisto called after him. “Where do I go now?” 

“Figure it out yourself, ‘Area Commander!’” 

_Fucking Bobby_ , he thought bitterly. 

 

*** 

 

The mansion was a place of shamed silence and sudden explosive outbursts in the days following the announcement of the mutant cure. Voices of support and sympathy, but also invective and blame rang through the halls. The professor had asked the older students to stay close to the younger, to provide an example, and to be there in case they needed to talk. Group homework sessions were an obvious and unobtrusive answer. And so there they were — Kitty, Bobby, Rogue, Sam, Terry, Doug, and a half dozen of the new students — in the music room with their books open, huddled close and working away in silence. 

Peter had been thinking about the widespread theory that the cure was actually a government plot to wipe them out. He just couldn’t accept it. Even if some bigots in Washington wanted that, he didn’t believe that mutant extermination was official policy. Nor did he believe that most Americans would want such a thing. Professor Xavier’s message of faith in humanity had found fertile ground in Peter’s religious upbringing. His father always said of the foibles of mankind, “They will find the Lord and they will stop acting like children.” Peter wasn’t so sure about the Lord part, but he too believed the world would move beyond hatred and embrace all outsiders. In the future, no one would need a cure to make them “normal.” 

Kitty was much more the skeptic. She loved to remind him that for every period of tolerance in history, there was a backlash. She believed all the mutants might yet find themselves peering out through the barbed wire of a prison camp. She was a bit condescending to him about his “utopian” dreams, but at least she considered him more a romantic than a naïf. 

“What are you staring at?” Kitty asked him, bemused. 

Pete was startled. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was. How’s your paper going?” 

Sam laid his head down sideways on his books. “She’s pulling off another ‘A’ in her sleep, naturally.” The younger students snickered. 

Kitty picked up an eraser to throw it at him when something altogether different hit them. 

It was almost a voice. No, it was a wave, like when you play in the ocean and get knocked flat. It was sensation, it was memory, it was pain and relief and disbelief, and a horrible tug tug at the core of everything. A world in red and then in color. Color never seen before, color that breaks your heart. And the eyes of the dead, so deep and entrancing. And then it was a voice after all, a terrible voice: _*I want you… arra’ arra’ klifkhatonda ssshet!*_

And it was over. Did it last more than a second? Doug had jerked upwards, knocking his books to the floor. Terry and Rogue had respectively covered their eyes and ears with their hands, like two-thirds of the famous monkeys. Bobby stared, stunned, breathing frost; and Sam, who had been leaning backwards on the back legs of his chair, tumbled over with bang. 

“What’s wrong?!” shouted Trent, one of the new students, terrified as he stared at them. 

Peter was on his feet, armoring up, looking frantically around for a danger he could not name. He bent low and took Trent’s shoulders gently in his steel hands. “Don’t panic. Whatever it was, it’s over, right?” He looked at Kitty. “You don’t feel it anymore, do you?” 

“No,” she replied, shaken. 

A rumble of feet. Wolverine raced by the open door, and Peter ran out into the hall, calling his name. 

Wolverine shouted back, “Stay where you are, Colossus! Keep the kids safe!” 

Peter stepped back into the music room in confusion, closing the thick wooden door behind him. 

“What is it, Peter?!” Trent cried. “What happened to you guys?” Peter looked at him in surprise. He had assumed they’d all felt… whatever it was. They hastily compared notes. They remembered flashes, but nothing concrete. There was no obvious pattern as to who had felt the phenomenon and who had not. 

It was Doug who figured it out several hours later, when it was already too late. 

“It’s just us older kids who felt it. Just the ones who knew Dr. Grey.” 

 

*** 

 

_‘He won’t leave Los Angeles,’ said Alphonse Maurier, a former bookie, now out on parole after serving seven years in jail for fraud and racketeering. ‘There are too many people who want Kwan’s turf. He leaves, he loses everything.’ When asked where the most wanted gangster in the United States might hide, Maurier laughs. ‘Los Angeles is nothing but hidey-holes. That’s how it was built. He could be right here in the building, making plans, taking out his enemies, and you and me would never know.’ We both look around the unassuming coffee shop which has suddenly taken on a sinister air, as if Cassius Kwan were watching us from behind the innocuous posters of homey coffee plantations._  


There was a knock at the door and Jubilee put down the latest issue of Newsweek. She was sitting on her bed, her broken leg propped on a pillow. “It’s open!” she shouted. Josh Foley entered cautiously. His perennial bad posture was worse than usual — he was practically a question mark of discomfort — and his voice broke adolescently: “Hey. Uh, so did you feel that psychic thing before?” 

“Yeah, fucked up, huh? Did you?” 

“No. What do you figure it was?” 

“I dunno. Maybe Xavier blew a circuit. Weird shit happens here all the time. So, Josh, you get my message?” 

“Yeah.” Hardly above a mumble. “What do you want?” 

“You know what I want.” 

The mumble morphed immediately into a loud, cracked cry. “I can’t, Jubilee! I told you I can’t! Why don’t you just wait a few weeks? It’ll be better then!” 

“Because I need to get back on my feet now!” She slapped the bed. “Get over here. You can at least feel it and see what’s up.” 

Josh ran an anguished gold hand through his blond hair. He closed the door and came to sit uneasily on her bed, staring down at her cast with his golden, glowing eyes. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Just… uh, just breathe normally and, um don’t move. I’m going to examine…” His voice trailed off as he put his hands on her leg. She felt a peculiar, tingling warmth as his power moved through her. He brought one hand higher, onto her inner thigh and immediately his golden skin grew more coppery as he blushed. “Sorry,” he murmured. 

“What’s the diagnosis, doc?” 

“Like I said, it’s healing well. A couple of weeks and you’ll be out of the cast.” 

“And how fast if you healed me?” 

Josh pulled his hands off her. He looked into her eyes in misery. “Is it really important?” 

“Code Red important. _Nuclear_ important.” 

She could tell that despite his reluctance, he wanted to do it. Mutants have powers and powers want to be used. The joy she felt when letting her fireworks fly was the joy he felt when he healed a body. 

“I’m going to study my anatomy books tonight… make sure I know what needs to happen.” 

“And then you’ll do it tomorrow?” she said, excited and impatient. 

“The danger is that I lose control and over-stimulate the cell growth. Then —” 

“Bone cancer, you told me.” She put a firm hand on his shoulder and said, “I trust you, Josh.” The boy was only 15. She was 18, hot, and putting herself completely in his hands. She knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse. 

“Okay, tomorrow,” he said. He stood up, curling back into a question mark. “Fuck, I’m gonna get in so much trouble if Dr. Selvananthan finds out. You can’t tell _anyone_ , okay?” 

“Kid, I was going to say exactly the same thing.” 

 

*** 

 

_Thank you for your letter(s), Michael. I have to admire your persistence! I have spoken with my board about the mutant student bill of rights, and they feel that in light of the new cure, the time is not right to pursue this action. The next few months may see many of our mutant students choose to live their lives as normal human beings. It is not at all clear to me where the school board’s responsibility will lie with those who refuse this option. Sincerely yours, N. Klayborn, Acting Chair, blah, blah, blah-di-blah_. 

The hateful words of the email rang in Mike’s head like a gong, almost drowning out his mother, who was ringing a few bells of her own. 

“I do not understand; a C+ on your chemistry test?” She waved the stack of pages at him, like it was his confession of murder in the first degree. “Michael this is not like you! How do you explain this poor performance?” 

“It’s just one test, Mom,” he said by rote, while his mind was in full debate with an avatar of the evil administrator. _So, is it board policy that mutants should be encouraged to take the cure? Is that to make it easier for them or for you?_

“Yes, one dreadful test in your last term at school. Your college admissions are still dependent on final grades, you have to remember that!” 

“I had a speech to deliver to the school board! That’s important, too.” Reasoned debate was giving way to fury. _And if they found cures for dark skin, different sexualities, independent THINKING, would you use those as excuses to curtail basic rights? Admit it, you’re just a bigot pretending to be a liberal!_

Could a protest be organized? But on what grounds? She wasn’t stating anything openly, just suggesting. He was so fucking sick of polite words. He wanted to firebomb the goddamn school board building and stand screaming on the ashes. 

“Are you even listening?!” his mother screamed. Suddenly, he was completely aware of her. When had she become so angry? “We permit your questionable political activities only if they do not interfere with your education. Do you not understand the kind of competition you face trying to get into a top medical school?” 

He found himself breathing hard, the anger at Ms. Klayborn spilling over into the living room of his house. He had noticed that the more piercings he got, the higher his Mohawk rose, the less his mother really looked at him. He was so sick of working and working and getting no respect. “Maybe I’m not going to medical school, okay?” 

His mother became very still. 

“Maybe I’m going to become a civil rights lawyer,” he said and he suddenly felt like the floor had vanished out from under him. Free fall. 

“Ali! Ali!” she called as if she were on fire and Mike’s father ran in from the family room in panic, spilling cashew nuts from the bowl he carried. 

Despite his growing audience, Mike couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. He had no more patience for evasions and secrets. “I’m graduating in January. There’s an intern position at the Mutant Center in Berkeley, California and I’ve applied for it.” He looked up and saw his father standing slack-jawed in the doorway of the living room. “I’ll work there for a year and then, hopefully, I’ll be accepted to UCLA for their pre-law program.” 

His father had a strange, pained smile on his face. “Michael, you are telling us jokes. You are going to be a doctor. That’s what we all want.” 

“Did anyone ask me if that’s what I want? I’m not the reincarnation of your precious Dr. Aziz!” 

His mother exploded. “You want to turn the world upside-down? Your family upside-down? Fine! You will do it without our money!” She stood and stormed out. Mike and his father watched her, and there was nothing but shock hanging between them, like smoke in the air. After a minute, his father sat on the couch beside him and ate again from the bowl of nuts. 

“That didn’t go well,” Mike said, not really to anyone. He looked at his father. “I just don’t think med school is for me anymore, you know?” 

His father looked so sad. He put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “We will all talk about it when your mother calms down.” He offered Michael the cashews and Michael took a few. “This new girlfriend of yours…Twitch, is it?” He somehow managed to say it as two syllables. “She is another mutant? Like Jubilee?” 

“I’m not sure,” Mike said and watched his father’s eyes go wide. “She won’t tell. It’s a political statement.” 

“A damn confusing statement! Have you ever thought of having a nice, normal girlfriend, Michael? One who might make your life more… peaceful?” 

“You mean like the peaceful one you found?” 

“Don’t be disrespectful to your mother! However, you have a point.” 

 

*** 

 

Lunch was over; the students put away their trays and got ready to head to class. 

“Hold it,” Kitty said quietly to her table-mates. She looked around and called, “Terry, Sam, get over here.” 

“Kitty, we have to get to class,” Doug told her as Sam and Terry sat down. 

“There’s something more important than class. We’ll just tell Mr. Eckstein we had ‘mutant problems.’ That usually works.” 

The school’s enrollment was four times what it had been when Kitty and the other first years had begun. With Dr. Grey gone (and now Mr. Summers), it had been necessary to hire additional part-time teachers. Kitty knew it was wrong to trick the flatscan staff, but it was just so damn easy to do! 

Sam shook his head. “Well Doug and me have history with Ms. Monroe, and you just don’t cut class on her.” 

“No, Oliveri is taking your class,” Bobby said. “Storm’s been in the subbasement with the Professor and Logan since they got back in the jet. Something serious is up.” 

“It’s got to be about the psychic pulse we felt yesterday,” Peter said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I keep remembering more and more details.” 

“Me, too,” Terry said. “Not just pictures. Sounds, smells…” 

“Emotions even,” Rogue added. “All this sadness and happiness. It’s a mess!” 

Kitty nodded. “Exactly. I think we better put our heads together and see if we can get the whole picture.” 

Harsh, autumnal sunshine cut through the high cafeteria window like spears of glass, but the cold light did nothing to dispel the air of dread that hung over them all. It was as if they were around a campfire in the heart of the woods, and the telling of ghost stories was essential. 

“It’s cold. There are pine trees. Rock faces,” Kitty said, staring into the blackness of her coffee. 

Peter continued the narrative. “Water. Animals in the wood. Foraging for winter.” 

Bobby said, “I can feel the snow in the air. It’s not ready to fall yet, but soon.” 

Terry’s eyes flashed with sudden recognition. “It’s Alkali Lake, isn’t it?” 

Bobby looked at Rogue uncertainly, and she nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

Doug caught his breath. “It’s a wave. But not just water.” 

“Not real; must be imagining,” Peter whispered. 

Sam lowered his face into his hands. Concentrating? Hiding? “But he wants it so damn bad. Be real, please be real.” 

“What I see.” 

“What I need.” 

“No,” Kitty said, and they all knew she was repeating a voice heard in her head. 

“Trust me,” Bobby replied. “I can control it now…” For whom was he speaking? A female voice, familiar… 

“My God,” Peter said, and he looked around at his friends. “I can see his eyes.” And he didn’t need to say that he meant Scott Summers, whose eyes none of them had ever seen. 

“And they’re so beautiful… blue,” Terry said with a small thrill. A cloud passed over the mansion at that moment and the sharp sunlight was extinguished. 

Kitty licked her lips. “She’s there.” 

Doug looked at her, mouth hanging open. “Dr. Grey…” 

“No!” Terry objected. “It’s not her. It’s something else!” 

“He’s scared.” 

“He loves her.” 

“It’s not right.” 

“Please, it hurts!” 

It was Sam who gave that last cry and it stopped them short. No one breathed. 

And then the mansion shook. 

An explosion — too far away for them to hear the blast, but they could feel the rumble, imagine the destruction. Too far, but far too close. Terry pulled closer to Sam who put a protective arm around her. 

The PA system crackled to life. Professor Xavier’s voice, tight and commanding: “All students and staff, remain in your classrooms. Close the doors and do not come out until further notice.” The speaker crackled again and went dead. 

The six students stared at each other in shock. “Peter…?” Kitty whispered. 

He rose to his feet and armored up, already moving toward the cafeteria door. “New X-Men, with me! You others stay here.” 

“Fuck that!” Sam said, following, and somehow Peter didn’t stop him. In fact, the whole group emerged from cafeteria, moving down the corridor together, staying close to the wall, silent as they could be. 

Rogue came up behind Peter and whispered, “Shouldn’t we wait for orders from Professor X?” 

He shook his head. “What if the X-Men are hurt? We have to be ready to defend the other students.” He looked around at the group. “If anything happens, I want the New X-Men with me. Sam, Doug, Terry, retreat to the cafeteria.” 

“There!” Sam yelled, too loud. They all followed his gaze down the corridor where they could see a figure moving in the mansion’s foyer. A woman with long, red hair, staring around her as if disoriented. A few more steps and she disappeared from view. 

Doug whispered. “Oh my God, it’s…” and then he yelled. “Dr. Grey! Dr. Grey!” and ran in her direction. Peter reached. 

“Doug, wait!” Peter called, reaching out a hand to grab him, but he wasn’t fast enough. Doug quickly vanished around the corner after the intruder. The others were all frozen to the spot, each waiting for someone else to move first. “Come on,” Kitty urged them, almost pleading. “Let’s go.” 

They emerged into the foyer to redoubled horror. Doug was suspended in the air, face white with fright. His hands scrabbled at his throat, as if he couldn’t breathe. The air was of full of Xavier’s ancestral artifacts — vases, tiny bronzes, the umbrella stand and its contents all danced lazily around the figure that might have been Jean Grey, if her eyes weren’t featureless globes of obsidian, if her face weren’t grey-white and shot through with sickly green veins, if the kindness they all remembered in their teacher weren’t twisted into clear hatred for the boy she held aloft telekinetically. 

_“I remember you,”_ she hissed. “ _Akfassni’klekbat lívkiii!_ _Weakness, passivity… You are an affront to the magnificent fury of the mutant race!”_

She raised her outstretched arm higher and Doug rose, too, his legs kicking, small squeals of pain escaping his constricted throat. She wore only black shorts, a black top, but trails of fire danced around her form like a translucent gown. 

“Leave him alone!” Kitty screamed and ran at the woman, at the not-Jean. The woman’s head swung around, and Kitty was swept off her feet, thrown backwards. She phased through Peter and flew through the wall. Peter shouted in fury and his steel feet pounded across the floor at the woman. He found himself knocked to the ground by an unseen force, held there as if by a massive weight. 

The next attacks happened at once, Sam bursting into fiery flight, Terry screaming in sonic assault, Bobby throwing ice, Rogue pulling off her glove and angling to get closer in the mayhem. With terrifying ease and a pale smile, the woman quelled all attacks simultaneously. Sam’s trajectory suddenly changed, sending him smashing through a window; the others were thrown to the floor. 

Not-Jean turned her attention back to Doug, her smile blooming into a flower of greatest cruelty. _“Can you not breathe, Khrattat frrsknnn? How sad. Try now.”_

Some force released, and Doug pulled in a deep shuddering breath. “Doctor Grey,” he moaned. “It’s me. Doug. Don’t —” 

_“And now scream,”_ she responded and Doug did, his limbs twisting in agony. 

“No!!” Kitty shouted, half emerging from the wall, unable to escape any further. 

“Hey,” came a new voice, and they all looked upwards to see Hayward Jones standing on the second floor landing. “There’s a faster way to ground,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. 

The woman’s fiery red haired tumbled and flowed as she tilted her head in surprise. _“What does that mean, small frrsknnn?”_ she asked, with genuine curiosity. 

Jones tilted his head in imitation of her. “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the high voltage current in the security conduit over your head.” He blinked and the ceiling seemed to burst with blue-white light, as if Jove’s rage were thundering down and through Not-Jean who screamed and thrashed for many agonizing seconds before she finally fell to the ground, blackened, smoking… still. 

The students were all released from their confinement simultaneously. Doug fell to the ground with a thud along with the floating artifacts. They all ran to him, Kitty enveloping him in a frantic hug. Jones hurried down the stairs to join them. The front door opened, and Sam rushed in, his eyes going wide as he saw the fallen figure of their enemy. 

Rogue and Peter stood over her body which lay in the centre of a patch of burned parquet. 

“Is she dead?” Rogue asked, her voice trembling. 

“She must be,” Peter replied. 

“Peter, there’s no way that was Dr. Grey!” Rogue said desperately. “Jean Grey saved us all at Alkali! She would never…” 

Doug was murmuring something, trying to sit up. 

Jones said, “Dude, take it easy.” 

“He’s right, Doug,” Kitty said. “Lie down. We’ll get you help.” 

“…okay. I’m okay,” he said hoarsely, and sat up, rubbing his throat. “ _Idioglossia_. Twin language…” 

“What are you saying?” Peter asked, coming to kneel beside him. 

“When I heard Dr. Grey talk like that last year, I thought it was some… ancient language or something. But I just realized, it has all the features of _idioglossia_.” He looked around at their puzzled faces. “Multiple babies — twins, triplets — actually learn to speak their parents’ language slower than single kids, because first they make up one to talk with each other. But the one she spoke was so complex… As if it had kept developing into a full language. What if Dr. Grey had another…” 

But then he lapsed into terrified silence, his eyes going wide as Jones was plucked from their huddle. They all turned in shock as the boy rose into the air in front of them. They could watch, but that was all, frozen as they were by insistent telekinetic force. They stared helpless as Not-Jean stood up slowly, the burns vanishing from her body as her skin danced again with pale fire. 

“No…” Doug whimpered as Jones floated closer to her until his best friend was eye-to-eye with the monster. A trail of pee ran down Jones’ leg and onto the floor. 

_“You’re a clever little frrsknnn, aren’t you, boy?”_ The woman stared at him and there was nothing human to read in her expression. _“Oh no, no blinking! The Phoenix never gets surprised twice.”_ She threw her head back and laughed, fully, lustily _. “You are more fierce than I would have thought. I like that. May you grow up to destroy and devour.”_ Jones suddenly dropped to the floor. He turned and scuttled back to the others on his hands and knees as the woman who called herself Phoenix walked calmly to the door. She turned and addressed them all from the front steps of the mansion. _“Destroy! Devour! It is your birthright as mutants!”_ The heavy door slammed, leaving the students stunned and shaken. 

 

The Phoenix marched down the driveway and then turned to walk across the grass to the middle of the garden. There, by a marble angel who resided over the goldfish pond, she raised her arms and cried, “ _Khrass’tíi-fa! Khrass’nák ta! Rise, rise! Into the air and then to airless void, my true home, at last!”_ She thrust her arms upwards again and the fiery corona around her glowed brighter. She could feel her body leaving the ground, but only a few inches. She hung there like a marionette, her toes in the preposterous hospital slippers just grazing the tips of the grass. 

_“Fuck!”_ said the Phoenix in annoyance and dropped back to earth. She raised a hand in the direction of the mansion, closed her eyes and reached with her mind. As she walked back to the driveway, the black Mercedes she had called pulled up and stopped, the back door opening. There was no driver. She heard a commotion from the direction of the mansion, and looked back to see Storm and Wolverine running down the steps toward her. With contemptuous ease, she threw them to ground and climbed into the back seat of the car. 

_“You can drive us, Jeangrey. I give you that much agency. No, you may not speak. There is nothing to say. Take us somewhere where I can think in peace. No tricks. I’m watching.”_

The car pulled out onto Greymalkin Lane and headed towards the highway at exactly 10 miles above the speed limit, the way Jean always drove. The Phoenix looked out the window at the world of her imprisonment. _Why can I not fly from here?_ she wondered. As they sped down the highway, she watched the signs of human civilization and was not impressed. Grey buildings, concrete, ash, garbage and all those brief, pointless lives. For all their technological advancement, the humans were no more advanced emotionally than the ones she had observed from her prison in the center of the Earth 20,000 years earlier. 

Lost as she was in memories of passing millennia, she had no idea where they were when the car pulled to a stop. The door opened and she stepped out. A human habitation. Small, neat dwellings on a winding street, carefully tended squares of grass in the last flush of green before winter’s cold would leave them brown and dead. She pulled off the slippers and walked out onto the cool lawn in her bare feet. She approached the door of the dwelling, but a feeling of vague dread touched her heart. What had she to fear? She was the Phoenix! Still, she turned and walked around the house where a larger yard displayed the passion of an avid gardener. 

Mature lilac trees and hedges of forsythia — they must have made a grand show in the spring — formed the core of the design. Long beds and round beds ranged down either side of meandering stone paths, free of weeds, full of healthy mature plants. Only the black-eyed susans and the last geraniums still flowered this late in the season, and the Phoenix found herself bending to touch them with the gentlest stroke of her fingertips. 

_Now pour lots of water in the hole, Jean_ , said a voice and she wheeled around to find its source. _Good! I put the plant in and then we tamp down the earth. Tamp! Tamp!_

_“Who is there?!”_ she called, rage filling her breast, and her eyes turned jet black. 

_I’ve come to take you to the mansion for the day, Jean. Would you like that?_ Xavier! It was an attack! She was ready, there would be no mercy. 

But the next voice she heard confused her. _Will Mr. Lensherr be there, too, Professor?_

_Do you like playing with him, Jean?_

_Oh yes, he teaches me so many things!_

_“trrrrrKHAASTTIN!”_ she shouted, turning, seeing, recognizing at last where she was. _“Damn you, Jeangrey! Why did you bring us here?!”_ Furious, she marched towards the back door of the house, the patio furniture flying from her path. She snarled in rage and the lock on the wooden door made an agonized creak and tore loose, the door swinging open. She paused at the threshold and turned back to the garden. Full of ghosts, full of a past that wasn’t hers, that she wanted no part of. She hissed out a breath of malice and the garden withered; the leaves dried and curled, the plants blackened and lost their will to stand. The dried soil lifted on the breeze, and within moments, the garden was a wasteland of grey ash. 

Something inside the Phoenix broke loose, like a sob that never made it to the surface. 

_“Dead,”_ she exulted. She entered the house. Every object was familiar and not. They belonged to a life that clung to her own like a parasite. She saw her own face, younger, fuller, staring from the side of a coffee mug. She shattered the mug with her mind _. “Do you think sentiment means anything to me, Jeangrey? Or did you think your progenitors would appear and somehow stop the Phoenix?!”_ She moved into the living room, burning family photos in their frames. _“Pray that they aren’t home, Jeangrey. I will show them no mercy.”_

She moved up the stairs, unconsciously walking her fingertips up the banister as the child Jean had every time. She walked into the bedroom that was still a shrine to Jeangrey’s adolescence. ’N Sync ignited first, and then every book, bauble, barrette and photo of long lost friends twirled into a tornado. The Phoenix walked in the eye of the storm to the closet, where she found the clothes she wanted — red as blood, red as flame. She shredded the rest with telekinetic talons as she left the room. 

The Phoenix waited in the chair by living room window. _Don’t you want to help me with the cookies, Jean? I’m making them specially for your professor._

No, Mommy, I’ll wait for him here. 

_Are you really learning anything from those men?_

_Enough!_ She breathed deeply, forcing the Jean-mind back to its room under the stairs, full of spiders and solitude. Alone in the roiling void of her consciousness, she waited, as she had for millennia. She felt the Earth turn in its orbit, and the ache of life as it clung fearfully to the speeding ball. 

And then he arrived, as he always had. 

Xavier entered the room, but why did he cling to this absurd form — this crippled old man whose mighty power would soon be lost to the ravages of human mortality? Why did he not cast off the frail shell and engage her on the plane of the mind? Absurdity! 

He spoke to her in his human voice: “I’ve come to bring you home.” 

_“I have no home!”_ she heard herself respond. 

“Yes you do,” he said calmly. “You have a home and a family.” 

Inside her, Jeangrey hurled herself violently against the door of her cage. The Phoenix realized she made herself vulnerable when she communicated in words, at their level. 

_*arrKHHAAAftn’iiiiii!*_ she snarled at him telepathically, seeking to tear his spectral form loose and confront him in the world of the mind. But then she realized how she could beat him. Xavier still thought of himself as human. He was afraid to cut himself loose and BECOME. She would use that fear to her advantage. She would tear his body apart with the rage of the Phoenix, and his mind, too, would die inside that fragile vessel. 

He recovered quickly from her mental attack. “I want to help you,” he said. 

_“Help me? What’s wrong with me?”_

A third voice spoke. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing.” Who was it? Familiar… But she didn’t dare break her focus, or Xavier would attack. 

_*skharTAAAA!naá’d! brr’EGAH!*_ She let loose the full force of her telekinesis. He would have been torn instantly to pieces, but he was using his mighty mind to dampen her powers. At one time it would have worked, but now the Phoenix was risen, fully and triumphantly, and no force on Earth could stop her. 

“Jean! No!” Of course! It was Lensherr’s voice! Her favorite teacher… he was the other here in the house. Fool, did he think he could interfere? Still, she didn’t want to destroy him. She felt for his presence, hoping he was out of range of her attack. 

_Focus,_ She reminded herself. Where was Xavier? His mind was gone! She twirled in the void of pure consciousness and yet he was nowhere! 

_*Hello, Jean.*_

Xavier! On her like a boarding party. Too close! She braced herself against the spine of the cosmos and pushed back. 

_*Jeangrey is not here, old man. You know all too well you are addressing the Phoenix.*_

_*Jean, the time has come to put aside childish things. You are strong enough to face the truth.*_

She knew it was a trick, from the trickiest old trickster of tricks. Fine, she could play along. Let him waste his last moments in pointless games. He still kept a tether line to his decrepit body, and that body was dying by degrees. She need only keep him talking, and soon she would win. 

_*What truth, Xavier? The Phoenix is amused by your posturing.*_

His mind-voice was unnervingly calm. _*There is no Phoenix, and you know it very well.*_

Panic seized her for a moment. Deep inside, Jeangrey’s strength grew. The Phoenix growled with the hunger of the neutron star! She ripped at Xavier with beak and talon. 

_*The Phoenix is a creature of the Stars, old man! She is fire and rage, a billion years old, and she will return to rule the heavens!*_

Xavier, on every plane of reality, smiled indulgently. _*Now, you know that isn’t true, don’t you, Jean? Shall I tell you the origin of the Phoenix persona? I think you’re ready to hear it now.*_

_*Born in the heat of the nebula! Star stuff and the first and only orgasm of the CREATOR!*_

_*Jean, you’re a woman of science. Does that sound even vaguely credible?*_

She must not hear this. She had to sweep him away, destroy even the memory of him from every human and mutant! She had to leave this planet so he could not get to her! 

But still he continued, though his body was being returned to base elements. _*You were extraordinary even as a child, Jean. Probably the most powerful mutant that has ever existed. Even before you could talk, you could hear the voices all around you — perhaps the echoes of every mind on Earth — undifferentiated, overwhelming. And though your parents loved you, they could only relate to you as human parents to a human child.*_

She wanted to scream, to hide! But she was frozen, unable to shut down her senses. 

_*So who could the child turn to? The only recourse for her lonely psyche was invention. Lord knows, she had enough raw material to work with. The thoughts of the human race, the raw clay of love, jealousy, joy and hatred.*_

_*But… I remember space…*_

_*You remember the astronomy shows your father loved to watch. Sitting in his lap, hearing his own fantasies of space travel in his mind. That was when the twin you had invented — the Phoenix — found her unique identity at last.*_

_*But if I was so… If Jeangrey was so powerful, why would she need the Phoenix?*_

_*You knew you were different. By the time I met you at the age of 10, you already felt profoundly alienated from your parents and peers. Feelings that usually do not develop until adolescence were already ripe within you. Only the Phoenix understood your frustration.*_

_*She understood…*_

_*And more… The Phoenix was a vessel for your rage — rage that was too disturbing for an essentially kind girl like Jean to accept within herself.*_

The words began to form themselves from the swirl of confusion. _Help me_ , she wanted to cry, _and let me be free of her_ … But those were Jeangrey’s words! How could they come from the Phoenix, the merciless might born in the heart of the galaxy?! 

No, the paradox was too much for her. _“Get out of my head,”_ she hissed on the corporeal plane. 

“You must trust me,” he said, and she could see both his strength and his fear. “You’re a danger to everyone and yourself.” 

_“No! I am the Phoenix”_

“Look at me, Jean! I can help you!” She could feel his mind battering at hers. “Look what happened to Scott, you killed the man you love because you couldn’t control your power.” 

No! It’s not true. I couldn’t kill Scott, I love… I mean, Jeangrey loved… But the Phoenix… 

She felt her identity losing ground. Like bodies in a mudslide, she and Jeangrey tumbled into the void, calling to each other in the language they invented: _Kharas’staNAh! Orméhh! Sister! Save me!_

She was going mad, and the only way to survive was to destroy him, destroy him before she was lost. These were the last words she perceived before the rage of the Phoenix eclipsed all conscious thought: “Don’t let it control you.” 

She knew some door had closed. She heard someone call her, someone familiar. She rose and followed him from the house and into the waiting vehicle. They drove away from the familiar street, and later they boarded an airplane. 

_“Is Xavier dead?”_ she asked at some point. 

Lensherr answered. “Just rest now, Jean. Everything will be all right.” 

It was night and she was peering through the plane’s small window at the stars above. She was Jeangreyphoenix and she would be, for all eternity, alone. The stars were too high above her, out of reach. She had so much power, but not enough to fly to a home that had never been hers to begin with. Lensherr. He would tell her what to do. She closed the window shade and shut down her thoughts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In his speech to the school board, Mike is quoting “Rejected” by the band Rancid.


	37. Plastic Weapons (X3), Part 1

Andi had dressed for the memorial but she didn’t actually attend it. If she were a psychologist — oh wait, she was — she would have something to say about the fact that she had failed to set her alarm. She jumped from her bed, desperately late, and ran to the closet to dig out the sober, navy suit from the dusty recesses. She spent precious minutes dabbing at a stain with a damp cloth while the tears poured down her face. Then she coaxed her car to life and raced to Westchester, cursing out loud at the heavy traffic. Miraculously, she arrived just on time for the ceremony, composing her face into something suitably sad and strong. But then, just before Ororo rose to lead the service under the glowering October sky, Andi stood up and left the lawn. 

She climbed the mansion steps, slipped into the Professor’s empty office, and sat down in her accustomed chair. Despite her tears, she felt serene. It was almost like she was waiting for the man to arrive, late as usual, issuing smiling apologies. When a voice spoke behind her, she jumped. 

“I don’t like crowds either,” Logan said. 

Andi felt like she’d been caught trespassing. “No, it’s not that… I wanted to be there… I —” 

“You don’t owe me an explanation.” He crossed the room and lay down on the leather divan. He was dressed in jeans and a school hoodie. Clearly, he had never planned to attend the memorial in the first place. She sat again, wiping her eyes, and they shared the silence. Despite seeing each other around the mansion, she and Logan had never really spoken. She knew most people found Logan’s brooding presence unnerving, but today she enjoyed his company. The Wolverine didn’t believe in chit-chat. 

Still, it was he who broke the silence. “So, what are you going to do now? Stay on or find a new guru?” 

“Charles wasn’t my guru. He was my teacher; same as everyone here. Except you, I suppose.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. I don’t know who taught me to fight and kill. I don’t know who taught me to speak Japanese. But I do know that Charles Xavier taught me more than any of them. I’m a different man than I was when he brought me here three years ago.” 

She was suddenly finding it hard to maintain her composure, but she didn’t want to cry in front of him. She cleared her throat and said, “So, you’re not going to leave?” 

“Why would I do that?” 

“Isn’t that what you…? I mean, from what I hear, you’re quite the loner.” He didn’t respond, and she looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. “Charles was the heart of this school. Without him here —” 

“Xavier may be gone, but the school ain’t. The X-Men ain’t gone, even if Jean and Cyclops are. And the kids ain’t gone. The kids still need us, right?” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. “Isn’t that what you’re all about, Murakami? The kids, and what it means for them to be mutants?” he asked. 

Her eyes were blurring now and there was no sense hiding the fact. “Yes, but —” 

“Don’t tell me you did all your fancy schoolwork just to please Chuck.” He stood up and walked to the door. For a man as heavy as Logan was, with his muscles and his adamantium bones, he made almost no sound when he walked. He looked back at her before leaving. “Everyone checks out eventually, sweetheart. Even the leaders and the gurus. Then the rest of us have to decide for ourselves if we’re going to take on their work… or take off.” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby didn’t know why it had to be today, but it did or… or he’d explode. Seriously. Still, it seemed so disrespectful, today of all days. The funeral had been about the life of Charles Xavier, the man who had been the anchor of their lives. In the hours since the memorial, everyone had been talking about the Professor, telling stories about his kindness, his wisdom and humor. But through it all, Bobby’s mind had been focused on his own fate. He had difficult decisions to make about the future. More pressingly, he had set scary agendas for the present. 

He knocked quietly on Kitty’s door, but there was no reply. He put his ear to the paneling and heard the soft sound of her crying. He knocked again and turned the handle. 

“Kitty?” he inquired. 

She was lying on her bed, back to him, but she immediately sat up, wiping her eyes. “Bobby?” 

“You okay?” he edged his way in, stepping carefully over her scattered school books, a disassembled laptop, and her X-Men uniform (which she was supposed to leave in the sub-basement after practice). He was suddenly very nervous. 

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I was just...” But the sentence didn’t go anywhere. 

_Now_ , Bobby thought, _Say it now. Just say it._

But before he could, Kitty continued. “Xavier came to my house. He was the one that convinced me to come here.” 

“Yeah me too,” Bobby replied quickly. “We’re all feeling the same way, you know. Listen, there’s something I need to —” 

“Bobby, we’re not. You have Rogue and I’m...” She stood up, walking past him to the window. “I’m all alone. I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore!” She looked out into the darkness. “I came to the school because my family was going crazy keeping my powers secret, waiting for the government to come and take me away! And this place, Xavier, all you guys, you gave me hope, okay? And then I started thinking about how I’d maybe become a computer scientist or an engineer and not have to worry every minute of my life about being a mutant.” 

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “You’d be a good computer scientist.” 

She turned around and leaned against the wall, rocking slightly in distress. “But then the attack happened last year, right? And first I was scared, but then I did my part to save everyone. And suddenly I realized that having these powers wasn’t just a curse. I was powerful and brave, and so I wanted to become an X-Man!” She bent down and picked up the black boot from her X-uniform. She held the boot up, examining it like it was evidence of something. “Now I… I don’t know anymore. X is dead, Scott is probably dead — it’s all fucked! I didn’t make college plans because I was joining the team, but now maybe there won’t be any X-Men...” 

“Kitty —” 

“I just miss home. So stupid, I know. It was like a prison with my parents; but now all I can think of is being back there, lying on my bed with a book, looking out the window. The first snow and all of that.” She clutched the boot to her chest and looked at him. “Bobby, what am I gonna to do?” 

“I’m gay,” he blurted out, as if he was answering her question. 

She dropped the boot which landed with a dull thud on the carpet. His statement hung between them like some strange artifact from an alien culture. 

Then she said, “Oh my fucking GOD! Yes! I _totally_ see it now; I should have known right away!” She was talking really fast. “You know what I mean? Back when we were making out all the time, it was all ‘ _Hello?_ Anyone _in_ there?’” 

“I liked kissing you, Kitty, but it wasn’t —” 

“No, I get it. It wasn’t _right_ , right?” 

She was smiling. He felt his heart swell. She wasn’t going to reject him. “Yeah. I was so afraid of telling anyone, even myself. Then I met this —” 

“Oh my fucking GOD!” she exclaimed again. “John was your _boyfriend_!” 

“Yeah, he was,” Bobby admitted. 

“And no one knew. No, I bet Jubilee knew, right? She always knows every-thing.” Kitty looked at him in amazement. “That whole year and I didn’t figure it out! I’m such a dork.” Her eyes were sparkling in excitement. “Were you really in love with him?” 

“Yeah, I was. I mean, maybe from the minute I met him. But after the first night in Manhattan he was gone, and then school started and it all got crazy, but then he was here, right? Larger than life! And I told him I loved him, but you know John. And then Rogue came, and I don’t know why I did it, why I asked her out and stuff, but I was confused! And John…” He sat heavily on her bed, suddenly weary. “It was never easy.” 

“Huh, I bet!” She hurried across the room and sat down beside him, their knees bumping. “Is John the only one you ever did it with? And _what_ did you do? Like, _everything?_ ” 

“Kitty! I’m not going to tell you all the… the details. And no, he wasn’t the only one. There was this guy called Remy.” 

“Remy LeBeau?” she gasped, her eyes going wide. 

Bobby felt at a disadvantage. “You… you know him?” 

“No, but… duh! He’s _Gambit!_ The mutant master thief! He was a student of the Professor’s for like 10 seconds — back when Cyclops, Jean and Storm were students. Don’t you know _anything_ about the history of this place?” 

“Well, yeah, but —” 

“Heh. Did you check for your balls after you guys did it? He might have pocketed them.” 

Bobby crossed his legs and turned way in indignation. This was his big moment and she was making him feel like she knew more about it that him. “Remy was, uh, really nice, as a matter of fact.” 

She looked at him smiling, shaking her head, and he realized to his relief, that she was impressed. He relaxed again. 

“So,” she said. “Do you still love John?” 

And now he felt like a tragic hero. “Well, yeah, but what can I do about it? He’s with Magneto. He’s one of the bad guys.” 

“Pfff,” she answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I bet he’s already figured out that Magneto’s a pompous old fool and he’s ready to come back here.” 

Bobby’s heart began to beat faster. “You think so? I just never thought… I mean it was me who blew it, not John!” 

“Or we could stage a rescue! Go right into Brotherhood HQ and grab him, like we tried to do with…” 

She stopped and her smile vanished. 

“What?” Bobby asked, growing nervous again. 

“Did you…?” Her eyes were suddenly all daggers. “Bobby, tell me the truth. Did you and Lance ever —” 

“NO!” Bobby answered instantly. He produced the lie without a moment’s hesitation, with complete conviction and a bright red coat of wounded indignation. “He was your boyfriend! I would never have done that to you!” 

Even though he was sure she believed him, Kitty dropped back on the bed, crushed under the weight of too much death. All Bobby’s good feeling vanished in a cloud of guilt. It wasn’t fair!Why did she have to spoil it? But wasn’t he responsible for Lance leaving? And for John leaving, too? He looked around, as if he might find a handy hole in the floor to drop through. Kitty’s closet door was open, and there, carelessly abandoned, probably since last winter, were her ice skates. 

He jumped to his feet. “Kitty, get up, come with me.” 

“Leave me alone, Bobby. Where do you want to go, anyway?” 

“Come on, just trust me.” 

“Storm told us to stay in our rooms!” 

He held out his hand. “We won’t get caught. You can walk through walls, you know.” 

She smiled despite herself. Breaking rules always cheered her up. “Get your jacket,” he said. 

As she went to the closet, she asked, “When are you going to tell Rogue that you’re gay?” 

His stomach knotted. He decided that he hadn’t heard the question. “And bring your ice skates, too.” 

As they skated around the ice rink he conjured up for them in the fountain, he thought about John. He knew the visions of a reunion that Kitty had sparked in his soul were just illusions, but what beautiful illusions they were! No, fate had decreed that Bobby and John be enemies. Bobby thought about Professor Xavier and Magneto. The philosophical divide between those two mighty men had grown into a great wall that separated Bobby from his former lover. He knew which side he stood on. He could never fight for any dream but the Professor’s. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about the result. 

 

*** 

 

John hated to admit it, but everything at the Brotherhood camp was a mess without Mystique. If it had been up to him, they would have brought her back here, cured or not. But you didn’t cross Magneto about something that serious. And maybe he was right. Could they trust her now that she was human? In any case, they had been scrambling to fill the myriad roles she played in their army. John was pretty good at picking up the administrative parts, but they had been forced to use Callisto to train the troops. She was talented and smart, but she lacked Mystique’s ability to inspire. Callisto’s hectoring and sarcasm left everyone bitter after practices. Fights broke out more often, and more soldiers had to be disciplined than ever before. 

What was worse was the absence of Mystique’s silent, guiding hand on Magneto’s ambitions. She had encouraged more intelligence-gathering and long-term planning. Magneto was more prone to the big show of force. And while John loved blowing shit up, he worried that the lack of a real strategy made them vulnerable, or worse, pathetic. 

And now they had another, terrifying unknown in their midst: Jean Grey — or something that looked like her. She had been given her own room in the bunker, displacing two annoyed lieutenants who had to move to the barracks. She had arrived with no belongings and took nothing from their stores — no clothing, no books, no spare furniture — before shutting the door for 24 hours straight. What was she doing in there? Sleeping? Meditating? Communing with the Devil? Maybe she was crying about murdering Xavier. Who the fuck knew? Magneto had come to collect her around nine that morning and John had trailed them up the hill behind the camp. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but every time she spoke, the air seemed to crackle with electricity and the hairs on his arm stood on end. 

Magneto’s voice was rising a bit in alarm. John peered out from behind the trees in time to see the woman telekinetically threatening the boss with a half dozen cure needles. Pyro immediately fired up his igniters, his heart accelerating. Maybe he could take her out before she spiked Magneto. But what if he failed? Then he would be the next victim of all that power. He had seen what she did to her parents’ house. But then the needles lowered themselves to the ground. It was the first time John had ever seen Magneto looking scared. The boss tried to act nonchalant as he walked away, leaving Jean standing among the trees. John realized that making his own quiet retreat might be a good idea. 

_“Hello, Little Flame,”_ the hair-raising voice said. _“Come out here where I can see you.”_ It didn’t even sound she was raising her voice; instead, the voice sounded amplified, like the trees themselves were speaking with her. John doused his flames. He straightened his clothes and shook out his hair. His heart was still pounding, but he was determined not to look scared. 

“What do I call you?” he asked, stepping into sight. 

_“That is the question I have been contemplating since yesterday,”_ she said. _“Your master calls me ‘Jean.’ You might as well do the same. Come closer.”_

She wasn’t actually looking at him, though he was sure she could “feel” exactly where he was. She was, in fact, looking up at the treetops as if she were bird watching. Little smiles and frowns crossed her face as he approached. Whatever it was she was hearing or seeing, he wasn’t experiencing it. Ten feet away was close enough, and that’s where he stopped. 

“So, what? You’re saying you aren’t Jean Grey?” he asked. 

_“Part of me might be… or all of me. It doesn’t seem to make a difference now. Here at the end.”_

The words sounded like new-age cryptic bullshit, but they frightened him. “What does Magneto want with you?” 

_“He has collected me in his butterfly net, the same as you. He seems to offer respect and freedom, but beware: though his net is honeyed, it is still a net.”_

“Heh, you’re some butterfly.” 

_“Watch me spread my wings,”_ she replied, and just at the edge of the visible, two flaming wings — more avian than insect — stretched into the air, causing the two trees flanking her burst into flame. John reached out with his powers to taste the flame and immediately staggered back a few steps. The fire was more and less than it seemed. It didn’t feed on wood and air, but rather on a source somewhere within Jean. He realized that if she wanted to, she could consume the whole forest, the whole Brotherhood, in an instant. 

_“Do you like my blaze, Little Flame?”_

“Sexy,” he answered, trying to stop his voice from shaking. 

The Phoenix laughed and her eyes went jet black. _“So much you have lost, Little Flame. And so much you never had. And when you had it, you threw it away, or it was snatched from your grasp. Envy and hatred can be flint and fuel, don’t you think?”_

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand —” 

_“I have a present for you.”_ She waved her hand in a circle, and her flames left the trees and flowed together in front of her, coalescing into a shape. It was a beautiful box, 10 inches on a side, seemingly of rich wood inlaid with gold in the shape of a stylized Phoenix. The box floated in the air, rocking as if on the gentlest of currents, glowing slightly in the shade of the trees. 

John’s eyes were wide. If it was a trap, it was a compelling one. “What is it?” he breathed. 

_“Just touch this box and you will have the power you have always craved. You will be able to call forth flame from yourself, not just manipulate fires already created.”_

John could hardly breathe. “What’s the catch?” he asked, trying in vain to sound disinterested. 

_“Good! You are wise in the way of tales, Little Flame. No magical gift was ever truly free, and the cost always gave the wise man pause. Listen closely: if you touch the box, you will be a true firestarter, able to call forth the blaze from deep inside yourself. I know where that power lies; I can make it manifest. But if you take this gift, you will lose the love of Bobby Drake.”_

John might have had a thousand half-formed guesses about what she would say, but that one hadn’t even made the charts. “Are you fucking kidding? Why would I care if…” His tongue stumbled in confusion. He found himself walking towards her, towards the box, though his hands remained at his side. “And anyway, that’s bullshit! Bobby Drake hates me. He doesn’t give a rats ass if I live or die! Die would probably be better as far as he’s —” 

_“You are wrong. The endotherm loves you, not the girl. He dreams of you and draws the memory of your body close at night. He thinks he made a mistake when —”_

“It’s not true!” John snapped and she smiled. 

_“It is true. I touched his mind two days ago at Xavier’s mansion. I know the shape of that love and where it lives._ ” She licked her cracking lips. _“Take this gift and I will snuff it out. The love that still burns hot will become merely a memory with no weight or flavor, an incomprehensible foible of his youth.”_

John could feel the heat from the box as he approached. He raised his hand in front of him. The box was full of fire and the fire was a mirror in which he saw himself as he had always dreamed: a sun god, a torch to light the world He started to sweat. Everything in him longed for the power… so why was he moving so fucking slow?! To his horror, the box began to rise slowly and then to drift away. 

“No! I want it! Stop, I’ll touch it.” 

The Phoenix’s laughter twisted like the wind as John began running after the accelerating object. _“Ten seconds, Little Flame! Touch the box in 10 seconds or the prize is forfeit. It is time to choose: Power or the love of a mortal?!”_

Her voice followed him as he ran after the box which was descending the hill, always just out of reach. He tripped on a tree root and tumbled, rolling and rising, a branch scratching his neck as he resumed the pursuit. 

_“Five seconds!”_ the Phoenix trilled as the box come to rest just a few feet off the ground in the middle of a sun-dappled glade. He fell to his knees just in front of it, gasping for breath, and raised a desperate hand. But that hand still faltered. 

_It’s mine!_ he thought. _I am owed this! I don’t care about him I don’t care I hate him and all of them they betrayed me Bobby fuck you you don’t you don’t you CAN’T!!_

And with his hand quivering, frozen an inch from the box, he screamed, “Fuck!” and then “NO!!” as the box vanished like a candle flame blown out in a draft. 

He looked desperately back up the hill, and he could see the figure of the Phoenix there, silhouetted against the sun. “Please!” he screamed. “Give me another chance! I need this!” 

And the Phoenix’s voice was in his ear as if she were kissing it with flaming lips. _“You made your choice, Little Flame, now live with it.”_

John collapsed on the ground, twisting his limbs in anguish. He lay there for more than an hour. 

 

“You trust her?” he asked Magneto as they marched across the compound from a planning meeting, Callisto tagging along as usual. “She’s one of them.” 

“So were you, once,” Magneto replied. “You’re more surly than usual this morning, young Pyro. Are we out of coffee again?” 

“He’s having his period,” Callisto sneered and Magneto pretended to be shocked. John ignored them. 

“I’ve stuck with you all the way,” he said. “I would have killed the Professor if you’d given me the chance.” 

These words did stop Magneto who turned and snapped at him, “Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you’ll ever know. My single regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.” 

But John already regretted the words, even as he spoke them. His mind flew unbidden to a May picnic at the School for Gifted Youngsters. Under a dazzling blue sky full of promise, he and Bobby were wheeling Xavier way out across the fields behind the house. The Professor was entertaining them with tales of New York in the 70s that verged on the ribald. John remembered laughing so hard his ribs hurt at some suggestive reference to a noted poet of the time. Bobby was going “What? Who?” which made both him and Xavier laugh like naughty confederates. John loved them both intensely in that second, under that sky, in that life. 

Magneto’s voice cut through the skin of memory like a knife. “They are opening the New York cure clinic tomorrow,” he announced. John sobered up and remembered who he was and the life he had chosen. The Master of Magnetism continued. “We have arranged a flight back east for you, Pyro. I want a memorable display for the TV cameras.” 

“I won’t kill anyone,” he answered. 

“Hmm, lucky for you and your scruples that Charles is already dead, then.” John winced. “The clinic doesn’t open until noon, but they expect the line ups — and the news coverage — to start considerably earlier. Give us our show at around 11:15 and you should avoid casualties. Fine?” 

“Sure,” Pyro growled, declaring, “I’ll give them something to remember.” 


	38. Plastic Weapons (X3), Part 2

“I knew Storm would come through,” Kitty told Bobby with a satisfied smirk. 

They were sitting in the bay window of the staff room looking out into the back garden. Ororo, Hank, Logan and the new arrival — the blond guy who Bobby could tell came from serious money — had just left. 

“Really?” Bobby asked. “I was sure this was it; the end of the school. I’m still in shock.” 

“Please!” Kitty laughed. “Storm loves big dramatic moments. I knew she was going to step up. After all, she’s a woman who doesn’t mind a bit of power, right? Oh wow, there he is!” 

“Who?” 

She pointed out the window at a group who were just shaking hands on the back lawn. “There, talking to Sam and Terry; the new guy. You know who he is, right? Warren Worthington the goddamn _Third_!” 

“Never heard of him.” 

“That’s because your father never tried to raise money for a foundation. And, hello, Worthington Labs? Mutant cure?” 

Bobby’s mouth gaped. “And Worthington’s son is a mutant? That’s just wrong!” 

“Hmmph, maybe that’s why daddy was so keen to find the cure. Oh!” she gasped and Bobby’s eyes widened as the blond young man undid his jacket, followed by his shirt, stripping right there on the field for a growing audience. Beneath the shirt, he wore a leather harness that held in a feathered mass on his back. 

“Holy shit,” Kitty breathed as the harness fell away and the wings spread wide. And even Kitty Pryde was rendered speechless as Warren Worthington III jumped into the air and, with a great beat of his wings, took to the sky. Through the glass and two hundred feet away, they could still hear Sam shouting “Yeeeeee-haw!” as he blasted off like a rocket after Warren. They dodged each other playfully, high above the back field as the crowd of students chased after them. 

“God, it’s like a dream,” Kitty breathed. 

Bobby said, “What?” 

“Worthington! Come on, he’s stunning! You have to admit it! Like a classical painting.” 

“Yeah, I guess —” 

“Except one you’d like to fuck.” 

“Kitty!” 

“Come on, Bobby! You’re queer and, evidence would suggest, a total horndog; do _not_ tell me you don’t find him hot.” 

Bobby stood up, blushing and walked away from her. “I’m not playing ‘hot or not’ with you, Kitty.” 

She followed him to the next window where they found themselves staring out again. “You are the least fun gay boy I’ve ever met!” she sulked. “Cut the bullshit. Worthington: hot or not?” 

Another wave of blush passed over Bobby’s features as he lowered his voice. “Not as hot as Sam.” 

Her laughter echoed off the walls. “Excellent! Admit it, it’s more fun now that you’re out, isn’t it?” 

He managed a smile. “Maybe.” 

Kitty was playing with the window latch, watching dreamily as the boy with angel’s wings swooped high in the air. Almost nonchalantly, she asked Bobby, “So, you told your girlfriend yet? You know, the one who thinks she’s marrying you one of these days?” 

Bobby cringed. “I-I’ll tell her after dinner, I promise.” This time they both gasped as Warren Worthington III flew right past their window, close enough for them to see his exultant smile. It was the face of freedom. 

By the time Bobby went to look for her, Rogue had already cleaned out her room and left the mansion. 

 

If Scott had still been there, Bobby would have been able to beg a car, but he didn’t have that kind of relationship yet with Storm, Hank or anyone else who might let him have the keys. He had never hitchhiked before, but he had to get in to Manhattan. As he left the gate, he contemplated the long stretch of Graymalkin Lane, practicing smiles and non-threatening “good mornings” that he would deliver to drivers. With his bad luck, some pervert would stop for him, offering him a ride that wasn’t exactly free. This led to a distracting and kind of arousing train of thought that was interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle approaching from behind. 

“You going after her?” Logan asked, pulling up beside Bobby and fixing him with that intimidating stare. 

“Yeah. Are you?” 

“Nope. I told Rogue it was her decision to make.” 

Bobby thought about this. Maybe Logan was right. Maybe he was sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. A wave of relief passed through him; _not_ confronting Rogue would be totally awesome. “So maybe I shouldn’t go after her either.” 

“No way, Frosty. You have to go. You’re a big part of her problem, and a little honesty from you might get her thinking clearly.” 

Bobby was going to launch into a bunch of _what are you talking about?_ lines, but bullshitting the Wolverine didn’t get you very far. “Shit,” he muttered and looked down the road again for any approaching vehicles. 

“Hop on. I’ll give you a ride to the train.” 

Bobby reluctantly climbed up behind the powerful man. Besides the rumble of the engine between his legs, there was a palpable rumble of masculinity emanating from Logan, and Bobby felt embarrassed to be so close to him, in such a suggestive position. 

To distract himself from what Kitty would have called more horndogness, he asked, “So, if you’re not going into Manhattan, where are you going?” 

“Heading west. I’ve got a lady needs talking to, same as you.” 

 

*** 

 

Rogue climbed off the bus in New Paltz, New York. It was colder here at the base of the Catskills than it had been in Westchester. She pulled up her hood and closed her cloak around her as she looked nervously at the soldiers who were escorting them to the regional cure clinic. 

She had left the mansion early the previous morning, seen only by Logan. She hadn’t gone far at first — only hitchhiked as far as White Plains where she’d checked into the cheapest motel she could find, paying cash up front. She knew it was a waste of scant resources, but she needed time to think. Somewhere deep inside, she had hoped that someone from the school would track her down and talk her out of it. She knew Logan wouldn’t. More than anyone else in her life, he had always treated her like she could make up her own mind. While she appreciated that, sometimes she found herself wishing he would maybe play the big brother, and just kind of tell her what to do. Sometimes. So there would be no “rescue” from the Wolverine, and with all the upheaval at the school following the Professor’s death, she was pretty sure no one else had even noticed her absence. 

Sitting alone in that depressing motel room, she realized it was time to be Marie again — not Rogue the “gifted youngster,” not one half of Bobby/Rogue. It was time to rely on the bravery and smarts that had led her from Mississippi to Northern Alberta when she had been only 16. Her heart was stabbed again by the memory of Bobby and Kitty skating, looking so happy, so natural. She couldn’t blame Bobby for wanting someone he could have a normal relationship with. 

Upon arriving at the bus station, she had been shocked to find the scarily anonymous “cure” buses, complete with military escort, ready to carry would-be former mutants to the New Paltz clinic. The other mutants didn’t seem to hesitate before climbing aboard. Rogue, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel they were all being herded off like cattle to the slaughter. 

When they arrived at the clinic, the size of the line-up outside surprised her, as did the presence of protestors who made up for their small numbers with loud ferocity. Everything felt wrong, like the universe was sending her signs to turn back, return to the mansion and Bobby and work everything out. But she knew that wasn’t really an option. It would have been like returning to her parents’ home and saying, “Hey, I was just kidding about that mutant stuff.” Then she realized that soon she’d be able to do just that. 

There was a sign marked “Registration” with a smaller line and this she joined just behind a serious black man who revealed webbed fingers when he filled out the forms. Then it was her turn. 

“Name?” 

“Marie Anton.” 

“Age?” 

“Eighteen.” 

“Any allergies to medications? To antibiotics? Latex?” 

“None.” 

“Family history of stroke, diabetes, heart disease?” 

“No, ma’am.” 

“Take this form and join the line. The wait is about 90 minutes.” 

“Oh! Is there somewhere to sit down while we wait?” 

“Sorry. If you can find someone to hold your place in line —” 

“That’s all right, thank you very much.” 

She walked backwards along the line, seeking its end. She turned the corner and saw that it stretched all down the side of the large municipal building and then wrapped around the back. She finally found the end. No one spoke to each other, and a strong sense of shame hung in the air like musk. Some of the people, she was sure, were embarrassed just to be seen in a crowd of mutants. Others, like her, must have been wondering if there was a secret price to be paid for normalcy — a bill in the mail that would soon arrive to shock them. 

The line inched forward. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby couldn’t believe the size of the line. Not only was he unused to seeing so many mutants in one place, he was astonished that so many wanted to be rid of that core part of themselves. The clinic was located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, not far from Mutant Town. He remembered his visit there on his birthday. That night, he had been unable to see any visible mutants except in the club. Today was different. Down the east side of the street, in the shadow of the tall buildings, were two long lines of nervous mutants waiting for the clinic to open. At the front of one line, would-be cure recipients registered and then, paperwork in hand, joined the other long line. In a brightly lit parking lot on the west side of the street was an almost equally large group of protestors. The crowd, made up of both obvious mutants and those that could pass for human (maybe some _were_ human), was vocal and angry. Their signs read: “Stop the Government Conspiracy to Wipe Us Out!!” and “God Made Me a Mutant.” Bobby noted more than a few omega tattoos. Cops with hooded, suspicious eyes watched the scene, muttering to each other in low voices. 

His best approach, he decided, was to get in and out of there quickly. When he found Rogue, he would ask her to go with him to talk somewhere. Over coffee or something. He left his safe and neutral spot up the street and approached the mutants awaiting the cure. He scanned the line in vain for her. He panicked that he might be too late, but then he realized that the clinic wasn’t even open yet. He made his way up to the registration desk, receiving dirty looks from people waiting in line. 

“Sorry,” he told them. “Just… just checking for someone.” He cleared his throat and a woman at the desk who looked more than a little frazzled turned her head his way. 

“Please join the line at the back, sir,” she said. 

“I’m, uh, looking for a friend. Do you think I could see your, um, list of… people?” 

“You’re kidding me, right? Please step aside.” the woman said and turned to help the next person in line. 

“Look,” Bobby said, pressing forward. “It’s really important! She’s 18, about 5’6, long brown hair with a big white stripe —” 

The woman raised her head, trying to see around the people pressed close in front of her. “Security!” she called and Bobby backed off. 

“Okay, okay!” 

Frustrated, he crossed to the west side, walking backwards, scanning again for Rogue. Some of the people in line shot him dirty looks, as if he was there to stop them in their quest for normalcy. Still walking backwards, he suddenly ran out of street and tripped on the curb. Strong arms grabbed him and he spun around, righting himself, preparing an embarrassed word of thanks. 

His four-armed rescuer greeted him with a snarl that showed pointed teeth. “You better choose which side you’re on, buddy! If you’re a traitor like those fuckwads, you should get out of my face before you get hurt.” 

Bobby was so shocked, he just staggered away. He might have thought he’d be more at home on this side of the street with the proud mutants, but the level of hostility, the fury of the banners and the slogans made him queasy. Didn’t these people know how hard it was for some mutants? Couldn’t they appreciate this wasn’t an easy choice? 

He turned again and found himself face-to-face with someone from his past. 

 

*** 

 

John had flown into LaGuardia the day before and spent the night in a Brotherhood safe house in the Bronx. Away from the strict schedule that ruled his life at Brotherhood headquarters, he could have slept in a bit, but he wanted to hike again through the streets of Manhattan. As the towers loomed up around him and the cars and people surged by, he reflected how you never really know you’ve changed until it’s already happened. It hadn’t been so long since he had freaked out on the steps of Xavier’s school in front of everyone because he was too scared to join a field trip into the City. He had been terrified of meeting up with someone from his past — a gang member or an old customer. Safe at last at the mansion, he couldn’t handle the repercussions of facing down his old life. 

Well, he had grown up, hadn’t he? Magneto’s lieutenant walked with swagger and self-possession down those very same streets. No one could fuck with him. 

He heard the crowd before he turned the corner, and when he saw it he felt a thrill. An angry mob of mutants, including a lot of Omega Revolt, hurling abuse at the clinic across the road and at the mutants lining up to be neutered. It was quite an audience, and he would give them a hell of a show! 

Then he saw him, and his heart stopped: Bobby Drake, large as life, staggering around like a lost dog with his “uh-oh” expression on. Two things struck John immediately — no, three: Bobby looked as beautiful as ever; even better with a bit of maturity around that jaw, a little less baby fat. Two: he wanted to talk to Bobby, hear his voice, even though he knew it would hurt like mainlining battery acid. Could the Phoenix have been right? Was it even conceivable Bobby still loved him? _Impossible!_

And so three: he could take Drake prisoner. Who knew what the Brotherhood could demand from Storm for his safe return. Weapons? New recruits? The mansion itself? The plan had merit, but the very idea of it made him break out in a cold sweat. All of the swaggering confidence seemed to drain out of him, like a trail of piss leaking down his leg. Magneto’s fucking lieutenant had one Achilles heel, and there he was in his preppy little windbreaker, apologizing to people as he stepped all over their feet. 

What the fuck was Bobby doing here anyway? Surely not taking the cure. _Rogue_. It had to be Rogue. John wasn’t surprised; if he had been forced to spend another year with Drake, he might have run screaming for the cure himself. Bobby’s beauty might still pierce his soul, but the cost of loving that hypocritical ball of confusion was too high for anyone to bear. Fine, he wouldn’t kidnap him ( _if you even could_ , the realist in him reminded). At least Drake would see him in action. He’d know what John had become. 

He was about to stride boldly out onto the street when a hand grabbed his ankle. Startled, he looked down at the terrible, ruined face of a homeless guy. Overweight, swathed in layers of grimy, baggy clothes, his head and exposed hand were patched, stretched, practically melted with terrible burn scars. He seemed to be African American, but there was so little normal skin left, it was hard to be sure. Still… something familiar… 

“Guh… Muh… Muh…” the man said through burned lips, thick as hot dogs, gripping John’s pant cuff with one hand, shaking his tin can with the other. John knew he should just kick the guy loose, or throw some coins his way and move on, but there was something… something… _Nikkatyne?_ No! Impossible, the gang leader was dead! John had lit him on fire and he had blazed like a torch! 

“Gi… Me… Yuhhh…” 

“Leave me the fuck alone! Let go!” John screamed, totally freaked out, and shook his leg spasmodically until the man was forced to loose his grip. John fled, diving into the crowd of protesters, heading for the back where he pressed himself against a brick wall and panted, waiting for his heartbeat to slow, waiting for the return of his mojo. 

 

*** 

 

The man with the webbed hands was just ahead of Rogue in the long line. He had a terrible story of ostracism and degradation to tell, and he related it bit by bit as they progressed slowly, inexorably from the back of the building to the side. Rogue’s feet hurt and she cursed herself for wearing heels. And for not packing a lunch. But this wasn’t a pleasure trip, so she focused on the man and his story. He told her he wouldn’t be seeking the cure if he could have remained hidden, but in addition to the hands, his mutation involved his skin changing to a vivid purple when he was excited or scared. 

Rogue was less specific about her own story, saying only, “I can never love anybody… the way I am.” She and the man spoke confidentially, their voices lowered, and the people around them pretended not to be listening. There was no true sense of community or camaraderie; just grim determination. 

Rogue reached the point where the line turned the corner to the front of the clinic. Here, she was forced to endure the taunts of the anti-cure protestors. She watched the line progress and estimated that in about 25 minutes, it would be her turn to pass through the glass doors into the building and change her destiny. 

She first became aware something was wrong when staff from the clinic ran to the soldiers, gesturing and pointing. Two of the armed men quickly relayed some message into their radios and ran around the corner. A terrifying crash and the sound of distant exclamations. Everyone around her jumped in surprise. The protestors stopped their chanting. The mutants in line looked at each other, but no one wanted to be the first to move; they had already waited so long. 

“Listen, sugar,” Rogue said to her neighbor, whose skin had indeed begun to change to the hue of a ripe plum, “I’m just gonna take a look-see. Hold my place, wouldja?” 

She slipped around the corner, realizing that the battle instincts from all her Danger Room sessions were kicking in. _Calm down,_ she thought. _It’s probably nothin’._ Then one of the soldiers was flying through the air, crashing into a mailbox. The line flew apart, like a chain exploding into its component links. People screamed and ran, and Rogue ran too, but towards the trouble, without stopping to question her decision. Her cloak rose behind her like a sail. 

The source of the chaos was two mutants, a man and a woman, who were dressed in what appeared to be circus outfits — skin tight, brightly-colored, designed more to show off their fit bodies than for any practical purpose that Rogue could imagine. The man had the other soldier suspended by his shirt, feet milling the air. 

“Get rid of him, Buster!” the woman yelled and the man drew back his mighty arm and sent the guard flying after his colleague. He landed badly, just to Rogue’s left and she ran to him. 

“Shoot! You okay?” The man cursed and held his arm. Rogue said, “That might be broken. Get out of here and call for backup.” 

The man grunted through his pain. “Leave the area… Everyone leave —” 

But she was already on the move, saying, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.” 

She assessed the situation. The woman had taken to the air, flying smoothly and effortlessly. She and the man had corralled about 20 of the people in line into the alcove around the building’s loading dock. The woman guarded the entrance of the alcove, flying back and forth. Any time someone tried to escape, she would fly at them and drive them back. 

“I’m Boomer,” she shouted as she came to rest a few feet above the ground. “And the big guy is Buster. We call ourselves Team Mayhem.” 

Buster stood behind the group, and hearing the team name, was moved to bellow what sounded like a football cheer: “Spitting in the humans’ face / Mutants are the master race!” 

Boomer laughed with appreciation and continued. “You weaklings make us sick! It’s our job today to show you how _real_ mutants use their powers. You have a choice. Use your gifts or die. There is no cure for you. Yo! Incoming!” 

Buster gave a guttural roar as he ripped a huge HVAC unit off the back of the building. It must have weighed at least a ton, but he lifted it over his head like it was nothing and hurled it into the crowd. Screams, desperate attempts to escape and then suddenly a cloud of bubbles rose and caught the projectile, suspending it in the air for a second or two while people scrambled out from underneath, before it crashed to the ground. A young teen, bubbles still leaking from her upraised hands, tears spilling from eyes, stood gasping beside the wreck. 

“Excellent, kid!” Boomer cried, flying excitedly overhead. “That’s how a mutant behaves! Not whining for a cure.” She called to her partner: “Boomer! Another one!” 

“Stop it!” Rogue shouted and ran into the alcove to face the floating mutant. “Let these people go immediately.” 

Boomer looked excited and amused. “And who the hell are _you_?” 

“I’m Rouge, one of the X-Men,” Rogue said defiantly, realizing just how weird it was to be saying that under the circumstances. _You gotta do what you gotta do,_ she realized. This morning, that meant coming to get cured. Now, well… She turned and marched toward the strong man who was just about to tear the concrete pad of the loading dock loose. “And you leave that where it is! It is _none_ of your business if these people want the cure, and I will not allow this criminal behavior!” 

Her heart was pounding as she stared him down. “You?” he said in confusion. “You won’t _allow_ …?” Rogue glared at him and pulled off one of her gloves. Buster didn’t know what she could do to him, but he was clearly intimidated by her attitude. Then his eyes left Rogue and he looked up, over her head. Before she could turn, Rogue was grabbed under the arms and swept off her feet, high into the air. 

 

*** 

 

“Derek!” Bobby called in surprise. 

The mutant with the bright red face and gill slits on his cheeks pulled off his oversized, rhinestone-studded sunglasses and gave Bobby a cool, appraising glance. “Drake, my brother. Glad to see you here, ready to fuck da fascist system up the ass (no homo)!” 

“Huh? Oh yeah, actually I was looking for —” 

“Yeah, me and Tonio were supposed to be bustin’ our rhymes against the cure here.” 

“Oh yeah?” Bobby said with a nervous smile. “That’s great.” He was looking past Derek, trying to see if Rogue had joined the line across the road. 

Derek grabbed his arm and brought his face close, spitting lyrics at him like bb pellets. “A twisted psychology / To cure your biology / All the knowledge we gained / Why not shoot out your brains?!” 

Bobby pulled his arm loose and took a step away. “Uh, that’s great. I’m sure you would have been a hit.” 

“Fuckin’ right, but OH NO! Someone’s got his priorities FUCKED UP!” Veins were pulsing in Derek’s temple. “I mean, you tell me, Bobby, what’s more important? Stopping _mutant genocide_ or screwing over your partner — your _brother —_ for ten goddamn percent on a merchandise contract?!” 

Bobby kept backing away, and the crowd began filling in between them. As apologetically as he could, he called, “Derek, I don’t have time for —” 

Derek was still shouting as Bobby retreated. “What are we here for, Drake?! What’s our goddamn _mission?!_ That’s what Tonio’s gotta ask himself!” 

Bobby squinted through the crowd. The clinic would open in 30 minutes. Media trucks were in the street now, and reporters had begun talking earnestly into cameras. If Rogue wasn’t here, where was she? Somehow, stopping her, finding her, confessing everything seemed like the only road to salvation. He had to focus, but everything was confusion and he was turning, turning, staring past faces of fury, faces of despair… 

…and straight into the face of John Allerdyce. 

 

*** 

 

Rogue screamed as Boomer flew her up, high over New Paltz, almost smashing her into one of the chimneys of the clinic. “Come on, tough girl,” Boomer mocked. “Show me your mutant moxie! Or are you just another pile of self-pitying slime?” She flew them around and around in dizzying jerks. Below, Rogue could see soldiers firing on Buster without effect. The man ripped a light standard from the ground and used it to sweep his attackers away. 

“Put me down!” Rogue shouted, and the woman dropped her. She tumbled end over end, screaming, her cloak coming loose and blowing away before Boomer swung round and lifted her again into the air, taking them higher than ever. 

“Gonna drop you again, girl,” Boomer shouted over the whistling wind. “Come on, show me what you got! Lightning? Telepathy? Make me think I’m a dog and I’ll bark for you!” 

Rogue knew she should be terrified, but the terror was somewhere _back there_ in the back of her mind. Up in the front, she was just really, really pissed off. “You have got three seconds to take us down to the ground!” she warned the flying woman. 

“And you’ve got two seconds before I let go and make you into a little sidewalk stain!” 

“No!” Rogue yelled, and she could feel the arm holding her begin to loosen. She pulled quickly at her glove and it flew away in the breeze. And just as Boomer let go again, Rogue reached out to grab her bare arm, tightening her hand around the unfamiliar flesh. She felt the incredible, shocking exhilaration as the woman’s life energy began to flow into her. Power, knowledge, history, feelings — the floodgate open wide. 

_Mom said I was NOTHING! Wait until she sees this… I love Buster so much, but how can we ever… If Buster knew about Lars and me, he would kill me… Never tell Please never tell ANYONE I tried to kill myself after the abortion…_

Focus, focus, Rogue sifted through the flow of information and found it… the key to the power, the knowledge she needed… And just before they hit the ground, Rogue took charge and flew them back into the air. Oh! flying was wonderful! It was not like turning on jets in her feet, or being lighter than air… No, it was some amazing push-pull with gravity itself… Dancing into arms of the Earth and then spinning away — swing dancing into the sky! 

But there was no time to exult. She could feel Boomer (whose real name she now knew was Vera Garai, born in Iowa, overweight as a teenager, lost her virginity at age 15 to a boy named… _STOP!_ ) could feel her dying. She had to land. She swung around and headed for the ground, but had to turn sharply up again as Buster appeared below her, swinging the light standard like she was a fly that he was determined to swat. 

“Let go of her, you fucking bitch!” he called, and Rogue could hear the desperation in his voice. She knew from Boomer’s memories how jealous he could get, but then she realized the truth for the first time: _he actually loves me…_ No! _He loves Boomer, not me…_ Rogue was getting confused as the woman’s ebbing life force kept flowing into her. 

“Let me land or she’ll die!” Rogue screamed. Buster didn’t seem to hear. She turned and flew towards the roof, but he was faster than he seemed. He jumped halfway up the wall and climbed the rest of the way hand over hand, arriving up top before Rogue did. She turned away from his pummeling fists at the last minute, but the man was crazy with rage and launched himself into the air, grabbing onto her. His arms were around her waist, and his skin was touching her bare stomach where her shirt had come un-tucked. 

The shock of the second energy flow made the whole world spin sickeningly. The pair were more than friends; dependent on each other, perhaps in love, they were coming face to face, completely and without masks in Rogue’s mind. Rogue, dizzy and confused desperately wanted to land, but she seemed to be rising, rising as if these lives that collided inside her were rocket fuel. She experienced everything. She took all and left nothing. She couldn’t help it. 


	39. Plastic Weapons (X3), Part 3

The Blackbird shot across America, heading for San Francisco and the X-Men’s long-anticipated confrontation with Magneto and his Brotherhood. The stakes were high, the fear palpable. Bobby knew just how fast they were going, but everything seemed frozen and still inside the jet. He was hurtling towards his destiny, and it should have felt like the whole world was screaming in his ears, making him squint and grimace; but all he could feel was the gentle puff of climate-controlled, circulating air. He looked over at Kitty, who was staring at him like he had a booger hanging from his nose. She unclipped her harness and crossed the aisle to his chair. 

“You nervous?” she said into his hair, leaning over the back of his chair. 

“Yeah,” he answered. “This one won’t be a Danger Room simulation, will it?” 

“You and me have fought for real before. Turcott’s clinic, Stryker’s attack…” 

“True.” They were silent minute, but Bobby knew her. He knew she was about to get to the point. 

“You’ve managed to avoid telling me the story for three days,” she said. “But now you’ve got nowhere to run. Time to spill the beans.” He looked around nervously to see if they were being overheard, but the rumble of the jet was too loud for that. 

“Nothing happened,” he said quietly, and then louder, “There’s nothing to tell.” 

“But what did you say to him?” 

“I told you. _Nothing!_ ” He found himself wishing for an explosive decompression. 

Kitty came around and squatted in front of him, staring into his eyes in disbelief. “You mean you saw the great love of your life for the first time in a year and you were completely mute?” 

Bobby pounded a fist on his arm rest. “He was there to torch the cure clinic! What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, John, wanna see a movie Saturday?’” 

“How about, ‘Magneto’s a loser and he’s on the wrong side of history. Come back to the mansion with me! And by the way, I really want to make out with you!’” 

Bobby felt abruptly guilty, like if only he had said that, they wouldn’t be flying into battle and possible death and mutilation. 

“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?” he hissed through clenched teeth. 

Kitty clucked her tongue as if his point were irrelevant. “So, what did _he_ say to _you_?” 

And Bobby got quiet. “He said, ‘Come on, Iceman, make a move.’” 

“Exactly!” 

“Are we talking about John?” came a deep voice behind him. Peter. Great. 

“No!” Bobby said indignantly. 

“Yes,” Kitty added. “Bobby was there when John firebombed the cure clinic.” 

“No way! You should have told Storm!” 

Kitty shook her head. “It’s complicated, Pete,” she said, implying that she was the keeper of a great secret. 

Bobby thought he might die. 

Peter came around and sat cross-legged on the floor beside Kitty. “Did you see Magneto’s speech on the news that night? I’m telling you, John wrote it. I know his style.” 

Kitty turned enthusiastically to Peter. “I was telling Bobby that we should totally kidnap John back to our side. It was bullshit that he left in the first place!” 

Peter sighed. “He’s a criminal, Kitty. It’s a miracle no one was killed that day. If Pyro’s willing to go that far, you know he must believe all of Magneto’s lies. I mean, if he’s willing to climb into bed with that guy from the Congressman’s office —” 

Bobby sputtered, “We don’t know what really happened there!” 

Pete gave him a silent, potent look. Kitty looked at the floor. “No,” Pete said, “we have to accept it: he’s lost to us.” 

Bobby undid his harness and stood quickly. “I can’t listen to this anymore! I-I have to get my head ready for this b-battle. Just… sorry!” He pushed in between them and staggered towards the back of the plane. He pulled down a small seat, folded into the wall near the emergency weapons station, and sat. Outside the tiny round window, the clouds streamed by like the jet was tearing through the peaceful fabric of the universe. He felt unsteady, like he might puke even, and dropped his head between his knees, trying to breathe his rising panic into submission. 

But there was no privacy anymore in Bobby Drake’s life. Just across from him, the lock on the lavatory clicked loudly and someone emerged. The shiny black boots stood there, pointing at him, so he raised himself unsteadily, focusing on the solid legs, followed by the bulging crotch, barrel chest and, finally the unique (and actually kinda gay) facial hair and coiffure of the Wolverine. The world’s scariest mutant was holding a pair of plain white boxers. 

“Having a little conversation with the floor, kid?” the man asked. 

“Just, uh, thinking. What’s with the shorts?” 

Logan twirled them on his finger and sat himself down on the edge of the weapons console. Bobby could just imagine him accidentally dropping ordinance on Nebraska with his ass. “These damn uniform pants are too tight. Needed some more breathing room.” He crumpled the underwear into a ball and gave it a toss. They watched it vanish down the hatch into the jet’s hold. “Two points!” Logan quipped. He punched a button on the console and the hatch slid closed over the hold with a hiss and a thump. 

Logan turned and gave Bobby a piercing look. “You holding it together, X-Man? Hope I won’t have to worry about you melting into a pool of ‘mommy-save-me’ when the fighting gets tough.” 

Somehow this challenge to his manhood steadied Bobby. He sat up straighter and said, “No, I’m going to be fine. I’m not going to like it, but I’ll be fine.” 

“No one likes a battle, kid. Well, actually, I do, but you don’t have to. You just gotta remember why you’re out there fighting.” 

“I know.” 

“And why are you fighting, Iceman?” 

Bobby smiled. “Wow, you’re finally starting to sound like a teacher, Logan. I’m fighting because Magneto wants to start a war with humanity. Because I believe what the Professor believed: humans and mutants have to work together to make this a better world.” 

Logan nodded and stood up. “Sounds good, kid. You’re ready. You can go back to kissing the floor if you want.” 

The man turned to leave, and Bobby jumped up, grabbing his upper arm. “Wolverine — Logan, wait.” He dropped his hand. His heart rose again in his throat. 

Logan turned and waited for Bobby to speak. 

“Did you… did you ever have to fight a friend? Someone you… You know. A friend?” 

“I don’t know. Me and my memory, right?” He mimed putting a bullet through his temple. “But I think I might have.” 

“And you could do it? You didn’t hold back?” 

“I don’t hold back, Iceman. It’s a blessing and a curse, but I never hold back.” He put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “You’ll do what’s right. I know that much.” 

“Do what’s right,” Bobby repeated. “I have no idea what that’ll look like.” 

“Me neither, kid. Guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours.” 

Wolverine turned and walked back to the front of the plane. Bobby sat again and watched the clouds fly by. 

 

*** 

 

Wolverine’s boxer shorts had landed squarely on Warren’s head, and Jubilee had to pinch herself hard in the tit to keep from falling over laughing. 

Warren made a disgusted face and threw them aside. 

“Not your style?” Jubilee said with a smirk when the hatch closed. There was less sound insulation down here and they had to practically yell into each others’ ears to hear. 

“These are strictly Hanes three-pack. I wear custom-tailored silk.” His face looked so serious, Jubilee couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Did the ultra-rich really have special tailors just for their skivvies? Did they come to his suite at the Waldorf and measure his joint? 

“What are you planning to do when we land?” Jubilee asked. 

“I don’t know exactly, but the Worthington name is all over the cure and I have to do my part to make things right.” 

She understood where he was coming from, but it made her uncomfortable. “Listen, Wings. I saw some of your moves at the mansion and you’re good, but my New X-Men have been training together for more than a year. They don’t need an amateur with good intentions getting in their way.” 

“If you knew how much money I’d spent on training, you wouldn’t call me an amateur. What are you going to do with that brick on your leg?” 

Jubilee looked down at her cast. She was almost tempted to give away her secret, but that was just vanity. She had to be smarter and more mature than ever, starting now. 

“Can’t tell you, Worthington. Just cover for me; give me time to get clear. Don’t say it was me that helped you stow away. At least don’t say it until the battle’s over. Okay?” 

“I hear you’re a wonderful fighter, Jubilee. Fierce. And a good leader. What are you planning to do when you graduate?” 

“What is this? A job interview?” 

“I like to know the talent. That’s the real secret of my family’s success. Get the talent on your side and you’ve won the war.” 

“There’s too many damn wars to choose from, Wings.” 

He finally cracked a smile. “Tell me about it.” 

 

*** 

 

“You’re having too much damn fun,” John snarled at Magneto as they marched across the hijacked Golden Gate Bridge at the head of their army of mutant warriors toward their moment of destiny on Alcatraz. “We’re taking on the US Army here and you’re acting like it’s mutant show-and-tell in kindergarten.” 

“Your problem, Pyro,” Magneto said, casually flipping an SUV off the bridge and into the bay with a wave of his hand, “Is that you don’t know how to celebrate life.” 

The last thing John felt at that moment was celebratory. He looked around at the terror they had already wrought on San Francisco and couldn’t help feeling they were a gang of punks on the biggest vandalism jaunt in history. And sure, it felt good to be a kid running around kicking over trash cans and spray painting the front of the post office — he’d done that gig before — but just when you felt like the king of the fucking world, the squad cars usually showed up. 

The truth was, he didn’t trust Magneto to keep his eye on the goal. He was one of the most powerful beings on the planet, but John sometimes wondered if the man wanted to do more than show off. Furthermore, he didn’t trust Magneto to take care of John Allerdyce when the shit came down. John had been there before — standing beside some boss, thinking he was safe. But in the end, the bosses took care of themselves. Everyone else was just plastic weapons — shaped by the ones in power to suit their purpose; used, and then thrown away. John had believed it would be different every time… until it wasn’t. What had he meant to Keever? To Xavier? Nothing in the end. 

“Just tell me one thing,” John said to Magneto. “Are you serious about starting up a whole new world? I mean, if we win this war, are you really prepared to be a leader and make things right for everyone?” 

“For mutantkind, yes, of course. It will be a world of justice and prosperity where all mutants will have a place and all will be cared for.” 

“And what about me?” John stopped marching and Magneto, too, stopped. Behind them, the entire mutant army came to a restless, curious halt. John felt the weight of the moment, of his position of privilege. “Will you forget all about me when you’re sitting there on your throne?” 

Magneto put a hand on his shoulder, and there was genuine affection in his eyes. “Oh, young Pyro, you know that I am grateful for your loyal service.” He smiled his charming smile. “Believe me, I allow no one to speak to me with the, _ahem_ , freedom I allow you!” 

But John wasn’t satisfied. “What about Mystique? She was loyal, too.” 

Magneto’s face grew dark. He removed his hand and began marching again, waving over his shoulder for the troops to follow. John quick-stepped to catch up as Magneto growled, “Do not mention her again. There are parts of my past that I do not revisit. The future is my only concern.” 

 

*** 

 

In his first real fight — the debacle at Turcott’s Clinic two years earlier — Bobby had learned just how confusing a battle could be. It was hard to have any real perspective while you were watching your own tail, being there for your comrades in arms, and trying to follow whatever orders you’d been given, which were basically impossible to follow anyway because the damn enemy refused to cooperate and do what the plan said they would do. 

That’s how it was on Alcatraz, with just six X-Men and a small contingent of the military fighting a huge and savage band of mutants. What was different was Bobby’s training, which he quickly realized put him head and shoulders above most of the goons who were trying to take them out. Storm was in the sky much of the time, barking orders into their earpieces, and there were moments when it actually felt like they were going to win. 

But still, chaos reigned supreme. Kitty was there one minute and gone the next, taking off after the British guy with the helmet. And then suddenly, blazing cars were raining down on them, launched by Magneto, ignited by Pyro. In one of the moments of explosive brilliance, Bobby clearly saw John on the raised ground, stand beside the Master of Magnetism. Bobby was seized by the urge to climb the hill, talk to John, touch him, but then Logan was shouting for them to retreat from the automotive missiles. Bobby snapped out of his distraction and ran after Wolverine, protecting the soldiers with frost blasts and ice shields as they ran for cover. Soon he was huddled beside Wolverine behind a demolished hunk of steel that had been a supply shed only an hour ago. 

“I call this the tipping point,” Logan said. “The point in the battle where everything’s going to fucking hell, but you also have your best chance to cut through the shit and blood and make your kill.” 

“And if you don’t?” 

“Figure it out.” A Brotherhood member did a kamikaze dive into their position and Logan dispatched him with a growl and fast jab of his claws. Bobby winced, but Logan continued his assessment as if nothing had happened. “Kitty’s got the cure kid, and me and Henry have a plan to bring down Magneto.” The flaming cars continued to rain down. Logan turned to Bobby. “You think you can take out your old friend?” 

He didn’t know the answer to the question, but nonetheless, he was on his feet, racing into the open as another missile flew across the sky. He raised his arms and quelled the fire with his ice. Bobby watch John descend slowly from the hill, and it was as if all the mayhem around them had vanished, as if Bobby could hear every footstep as John approached him. They squared off like gunfighters in an old Western. John’s eyes were wide and terrifying, full of emotions Bobby could never hope to catalogue. 

Bobby hadn’t planned it, but he found himself calling out, “John, we don’t have to fight. Leave Magneto and come back to us. Everyone wants you to.” He knew that wasn’t true. He knew that what he meant was _I want you to_. 

John’s response was a swift and uncompromising attack. He held nothing back and the flames were his hatred made manifest. Bobby would have died instantly if he hadn’t been able to anticipate the moment — almost as if by telepathy — firing back with an ice blast of almost equal magnitude. They poured everything they had into the cataclysmic, elemental meeting, but Bobby could not match John’s searing commitment to his former lover’s destruction. Bobby found himself losing ground, falling to his knees. 

Absurdly, a poem of John’s came into his mind, really just a fragment on a scrap of math homework, one of the pages that Bobby had rescued from John’s inferno the day he had left them in spirit, if not in body: 

   Combustion river — the downstream is dream  
   Your burning promise more  
   Than I bargained for:  
   A foundation, a flint, a fertile field  
   Would you give me what I cannot ask for? 

“John,” he called to him above the roar. He could barely see through the steam that rose where his ice met the obliterating fire. “John, I know now. It was all about me.” 

It was almost as if he was hearing John through the line of conflagration itself, a voice of flame voice in a sheathe of ice. 

“What are you babbling about, Drake? What’s about you?” 

“All of it. The poems you wrote. ‘Your burning promise… foundation, flint —’” 

“Are you crazy? Do you think you were ever that important to me?” 

“All of them, for me. And I didn’t know. But you didn’t tell me, John! How could I have known if you could never even say ‘I love you’?” 

There was no way they should have been able to hear each other. And then Bobby realized, he had not even spoken aloud. Elemental telepathy. They talked through their gifts, through the union, though the union meant mutual destruction. The intensity was too much — the intensity of hate, of regret — and he almost let go, let John’s flames take him. It would be just punishment for having been so weak in his love. But was it so easy to love John? Did he invite the love, or did he forever hold himself apart? _Would you give what I cannot ask for? ASK!_ Bobby thought. But John was too proud. 

Bobby felt the change begin deep inside him. What was liquid became solid. Doubt turned to certainty as flesh turned to ice. He was done blaming himself and done begging for forgiveness. He wasn’t fragility, he was the Iceman! 

“Don’t switch majors, Drake. English lit is beyond you!” John taunted through the elemental network. “You’re in over your head, Bobby. You better go back to school!” 

The Iceman rose from his knees, and his frozen forehead connected, concussively, with John’s all-too-human head. The flames were abruptly snuffed out, and the furious warrior that was Pyro, fire mutant, lieutenant to the great Magneto, fell unconscious to the ground. 

“You should have never left,” Bobby smiled, victorious. 

The Iceman felt calm and powerful as he walked through across the battleground. The glow of fire and the raw gleam of emergency lights glinted on his frozen limbs. The wind had picked up out of nowhere and debris was beginning to fly through the air. A piece hit him in the back, and he barely felt it. He smiled, thinking that this must be how Pete felt in his organic steel armor. Untouchable. He wasn’t frightened anymore, and the ghosts of the past were put to rest. John Allerdyce was now just a memory. In defeating him, he had put away all the worry and guilt. It was over. 

The conflict seemed to have disintegrated around him, and pointless chaos reigned. Everywhere, soldiers and Brotherhood members alike were running in all directions. The fighting was sporadic and aimless. 

More flying debris. Was Storm making this strange wind? No, it was something stranger: Telekinesis, random shiftings of everything from dust to delivery trucks. Screams in the distance, explosions. Above him he saw white wings against the ash-black sky. _Warren!_ What was he doing here? The telekinetic wind was picking up in intensity. He tried his X-phone again and, finding it dead, got a bearing and headed for the emergency rendezvous point. 

“Iceman!” Storm called, coming in to land as he arrived at the designated spot by one of the administrative buildings. “Impressive ice form! Are you all right?” But before he could answer, Warren landed, and through the flying debris, he saw Kitty approaching, leading a bald boy. 

Her eyes went wide as she took in his new look. A rush of pride moved through him. He liked being impressive. 

“Whoa, you look like an ad for a floor cleaner,” she said. “Bobby, this is Jimmy.” 

Bobby reached out a hand, hoping to give the kid a thrill at meeting the one and only Iceman, but as his hand touched the boy’s, he reverted to flesh and blood, a cloud of pale mist rising from his head. 

“What the fuck?” he gasped, his head spinning. 

“Sorry,” Jimmy answered bashfully. Immediately, all the doubt and fear he had felt earlier rushed back in. He looked across the battle field and watched the telekinetic storm growing around a central, glowing point, forming a vortex. 

Storm looked grim. “Colossus and Beast are heading for the Blackbird. We’ll meet them there. I want to leave while we still can.” 

“Where’s Logan?” Bobby asked. 

“He’s gone to stop her before she kills us all.” 

“Her?” Bobby asked, confused. “Jean?” Bobby could just make out the glowing figure at the center of the vortex. 

“That’s not Jean! Jean Grey is dead,” Storm said with finality. “Come on.” 

With Jimmy in tow, none of them could use their powers to speed up their escape, so they took the stairs. A few minutes later, they reached the roof of the tottering building, only to find their jet gone. 

“Destroyed,” Hank said, walking up to them. “Just as we got here. The Phoenix effect is causing pockets of complete molecular dissolution all over the island. I don’t know if they’re random or purposeful.” 

“No!” Warren screamed. “Jubilee! She was hiding in the jet!” 

“Are you sure?!” Storm said, a hint of panic in her eye. 

Warren ran his fingers through his hair. “Let me go look for her!” 

He tried to take to the air, but Hank grabbed his arm. “You can’t fly in this mess.” 

Bobby felt sick. Jubilee couldn’t be dead! It wasn’t fair; she wasn’t even in the fight! He turned to Storm as if their leader could make it not be true. But it was Kitty who found the answer in the rubble: Jubilee’s cast, cut in two and discarded, and Wolverine’s boxer shorts sitting on top of them. On the skivvies was a note scrawled with a black marker: 

Don’t worry about me. Business to take care of. CU soon. J. 

Bobby, Pete and Kitty fell into an abrupt, relieved group hug. 

“Thank God,” Kitty breathed, and then added, “I’ll kill her.” 

Hank and Storm were conferring. He told them, “The destruction wave is expanding along a spiral trajectory from the Phoenix’s location. I think the safest path is towards that shoreline.” He pointed. 

“Okay, X-Men,” Storm shouted. “There’s a fire escape down the back of the building. Let’s move!” 

Bobby turned to look back on the unfolding holocaust. He couldn’t see the center anymore for the debris in the air. Somewhere in there, Wolverine was trying to stop Jean, risking death at the hands of someone he loved, just as Bobby had done. Screams. He watched in horror as a retreating group of eight soldiers was suddenly reduced to three. Looking around he saw more and more people disintegrating into showers of ash. His lips were moving without sound. Sweat poured from his shaking body. 

“John,” he heard himself say. 

Kitty screamed to him from across the roof, her voice barely audible above the howling storm: “Bobby, we have to hurry!” 

“No!” he called back. “I have to save John!” And he ran for the staircase they had come up, not looking back. He burst out of the building into a disintegrating landscape. He reached inside himself and realized his power was back. That, at least, was something. A soldier began running with him, perhaps hoping that one of the uniformed mutants would know how to escape. Bobby groaned in horror as the man became a cloud of dust. And still Bobby ran. 

The terrain was so altered, he could barely figure out where he had left John. He let blind instinct drive him, past panic, past fatigue. And there he was. Unconscious, crumpled and small on the ground, the only complete figure left in a world of swirling particles. Bobby threw the inert body over his shoulder and turned to run back the way he’d come. There was a humming in the air and he dared look back. Gaining on him was a wave of fiery energy, not flame like John’s, but a wave of pure malice, like a pack of carnivores driven by hunger insatiable. All around the island, a wall of water a hundred feet high rose, and all he could think was _run, run!_

Bobby crested a hill and saw the ground so broken below, he knew he would never been able to cross it, not with the burden on his back; the oncoming wave would consume them. He had no time to plan. He jumped from the hilltop, making a river of ice ahead of him, landing with precision and flying down the ice slide, a vision of speed and grace. He created the slide even as he rode it, banking around corners ahead of the wall of destruction, compensating for the dead weight of John. The dust in the air was thinner now, and he could see lights glinting in the water. _Please,_ he prayed, _just let me save him._

 

*** 

 

At the heart of the storm, the Phoenix tore at the Wolverine, and still he came towards her. _*Useless!*_ she screamed in his mind. _*There is nothing human left inside me. You stand at the threshold of the unmaking of creation!*_ But he did not stop. 

Out loud, she said, _“You would die for them?”_

“Not for them. For you.” 

Jean Grey awoke in her prison and looked through her eyes. Power flowed from her like an unfettered beast. She had failed to contain the Phoenix. She had brought herself to this point and there was no way out. _I’m sorry…_

_*There’s no need to be sorry,*_ said a calm voice that was so familiar she did not recognize it for a moment. 

_*You’re still here! How…?*_

_*You never let me go, Jean. You couldn’t, even when things were darkest.*_

More than anything, she wanted to believe that it wasn’t just a trick of her dying mind. If it were possible that he was here, she could face death with some measure of peace. But whether he was hallucination or miracle, he had to know the truth. She had to confess everything. 

_*I killed the Professor. I didn’t want to, but I did it.*_

_*I know. You couldn’t help it. I forgive you.*_

“JEAN!” the Wolverine cried over the howl of the Phoenix force. 

_*And I love him. I love Logan. How can you forgive me for that?*_

_*Your love for Logan can’t diminish what we have. Love begets love. It is the life force. So simple, but I never saw it before. Love is like the power of the Phoenix; it’s deep and limitless. But where the Phoenix force is insatiable destruction, love is continual creation, faith in the future. It is hope, the gift you gave me when I had nothing. I was just a boy, but I had already given up on life. If not for you, I would have killed myself. That’s why I’ll always love you, and why I’m not afraid of who else you love.*_

_*We die together, then? Together at the end of things?*_

_*This isn’t our funeral, Jean. Don’t you see? It’s our wedding.*_

_“Save me,”_ she told them both, and Logan’s claws pierced her human heart. 

 

*** 

 

It was a beautiful night, still and warm. Gulls circled overhead in the last streaks of sunlight, crying out the usual complaints and exultations as if the world hadn’t been turned upside down less than an hour earlier. The waves were gentle and the breeze pleasant on his cheek. He knew the city would still be in panic, but somehow Bobby’s soul was peaceful. Their raft of ice was drifting across San Francisco Bay towards the far shore (and not out to sea, which would have been bad). He looked down at John who lay unconscious at his feet, and watched him breathe slowly and evenly. Magneto was cured, the Brotherhood finished. Maybe the X-Men were, too. The thought made him wistful, but not truly sad. 

“I want a new beginning,” Bobby said out loud. “I think we both deserve that. Is it really too much to ask?” 

John’s eyes were closed, but he gritted his teeth and hissed: “Kill you, fucker, fucker…” Bobby frowned, but such a small thing couldn’t diminish his optimism. _He’s just dreaming,_ he thought and smiled again _. Nothing to worry about._

They drifted into the dark on the fickle currents of the night. 

**END OF BOOK FOUR**


	40. The Strange, Clear Light of Morning

**Book 5: Love and Power**

_Castle grew warier and charier as the cave grew deeper and steeper, darker and starker._

_— Trimally! — he called._

_He entered a new chamber where weak light from a crack in the rock above illuminated a pair of skeletons, huddled together in a corner in their final, eternal embrace, one with its arm extended as if grasping for a last, hallucinated hope._

_Castle turned to run for the door, but the dense tangle of thorns closed over it in an instant, the fanged branches twining sensuously around each other, contemptuous in their languor. A terrible voice intoned as if from the rock itself:_

_— YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PRISON._

_Castle sank to the ground in despair and cursed his moment of weakness. Trusting the wrong soul had proved his downfall once again._

         – from Castle in Exile, by St. John Allerdyce 

 

Bobby’s heart fairly bubbled with joy. The school was busier and happier than ever. He bounced through the halls, saying hi to everyone, slapping the wood-paneled walls as he came around each corner. Sunlight poured through the leaded glass windows and the freshly polished furniture practically glinted. 

Twin girls, first years, were suddenly in his path. Bobby knew he should remember their names, but he couldn’t for the life of him. 

“Congratulations, Bobby,” they said in perfect unison, which always kind of creeped him out. “We heard they made you leader of the New X-Men.” 

Bobby felt a swelling of pride. He nodded humbly and said, “Thanks, girls, but in a team as special as ours, everyone is a little bit of a leader.” He waved and walked away, but after a few steps, he felt compelled to look back. The twins stood there in perfect symmetry in their dresses and pigtails, staring at him, faces pale as death. Suddenly all the good feeling turned to dread. The sunlight was gone by the time he reached his room. The door, strangely, was open. He gasped when he saw Rogue sitting on his bed. 

“You’re back,” he said, and it was then he noticed she wasn’t wearing gloves. 

She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I had to,” she told him. 

“This isn’t what I wanted,” he said, his voice cracking a bit. 

She stood and came to him, speaking with sad certainty. “I know. It’s what I wanted.” She took his hand and he shuddered for a moment before he truly accepted that, yes, Rogue was “cured.” He looked down at their clasped hands, and realized she was naked. “Come on,” she said urgently, licking her lips, breathing faster, leading him toward the bed. 

And he was naked, too, willing his dick to get hard, knowing it was what was expected of him. He tried to look between her spread legs, but all he could see there was a blur. The door! He remembered the door was open as he climbed on top of her, his flaccid dick slapping wetly against the white flesh of her thigh. He turned and saw a dozen or more young students, watching avidly, some smirking and giggling at his ineptitude. The twins were there, black staring eyes in doll-white faces. “Come and play with us, Bobby,” they said. 

 

Bobby awoke with a start in the broken easy chair of the hotel room. The musty smell had grown worse, and he stood stiffly and crossed to open the room’s single small window. By staring down the dim alleyway, he could just make out a sliver of street, and that’s how he knew the day was fair and well underway. He turned on the desk light and walked to the bed where John lay sleeping. The bruise on his forehead was more pronounced today; a purple shadow like a rain cloud on his clear, white skin. 

Their ice raft had come ashore in San Francisco the previous night in a waterside park. Looking back towards Alcatraz, Bobby had seen smoke rising into the sky. He had hoisted John over his shoulder and scrambled across the dark, abandoned park. The power was out across the whole area, probably as a result of the Golden Gate Bridge being torn loose. Bobby had got them out onto a main street and lain John down on a bus-stop bench. The streets were eerily deserted and Bobby had breathed a sigh of relief when a taxi finally drove by. 

“I need a cheap hotel,” he’d told the cab driver. Then, imagining roaches, crack addicts and dangerous pimps, he had amended his request: “Not _too_ cheap.” Bobby had been worried that the driver might call the cops, thinking it was Bobby who’d hurt John. But the driver was talking a nervous blue streak about the “mutant terrorists,” and couldn’t spare a care about the guy in the black leather uniform and his unconscious friend. 

The “not too cheap” hotel had cost more money than Bobby had wanted to pay, and yet didn’t provide any of the comfort he might have wished for. John had been only barely conscious and wasn’t making much sense. Bobby had to pretend to the clerk that he was bringing his drunk friend in from a wild night on the town. Not that the clerk cared; his eyes had been glued to the wall-mounted TV where coverage of the battle of Alcatraz and Magneto’s relocation of the bridge played non-stop. Bobby propped John up in the tiny elevator and got them to their room. Once Bobby had him in bed, John had had a brief moment of lucidity. “I’m not done killing you,” he had said with cool hatred. 

“It’s over John,” Bobby had replied. “Magneto’s cured.” 

“Fucking idiot,” John mumbled before sleep claimed him. Bobby hadn’t been sure if he meant Magneto or him. 

Bobby couldn’t bring himself to join John in the double bed, and had settled into the armchair. He’d had time to think _fucking spring is sticking in my back_ before he, too, fell into a deep and featureless sleep. 

And thus they survived the night. Bobby reached down to touch John’s cheek and found it hot. That was probably a good sign for John, but it was hard to be sure. From his emergency first aid training, Bobby guessed that it was a concussion. What had they been taught? Concussions usually healed on their own, right? He couldn’t remember any more. His stomach growled, and he decided the first order of business was a supplies run. 

He’d have to get to an ATM for some cash. He wasn’t really worried; he’d been collecting a small salary for his work as a teaching and admin assistant at the school, and he’d saved up just over $2,000. Even so, Bobby wasn’t sure how long he and John would be there at the hotel; he would have to keep them on a tight budget. He wrote a note and left it on the dresser: “Gone for food. Stay in bed and rest. TV doesn’t work. Be back soon, B.” 

He resisted the urge to add the word “Love” before his initial. 

He smiled shyly at the clerk on the desk as he passed — he looked like he might be the night clerk’s brother — and was ignored for his trouble. The man was watching the TV which showed frightening helicopter shots of the Phoenix effect over Alcatraz. The word “mutant” repeatedly assaulted Bobby’s ear like an angry hornet. He stepped out onto the sidewalk and squinted at the sunny day. The streets were busy, but there was a palpable air of tension and suspicion. He had left his uniform jacket off, wearing only the black leather pants with his white t-shirt. Even so, he was getting stares. Maybe the pants were a bit fancy for the denizens of what the cab driver had called the Mission District. 

He made a stop at a funky little second-hand clothing store and came out with a pair of jeans and a couple of surfing t-shirts. Even though it didn’t really fit into their budget, he hadn’t been able to resist buying John a shirt. It featured a red baby demon in a diaper, his head dancing with flames. The shirt bore the inscription “Li’l Devil.” The woman at the desk had offered Bobby $100 for his X-pants, and he had been sorely tempted to take the money. But they weren’t his to sell. And besides, it wasn’t like he _never_ intended to go back… 

Back on the street with his leather hidden away in the shopping bag, he attracted less attention (though he was pretty sure he got checked out by a few guys). He began to make a shopping list in his head, enjoying the idea that he would be nourishing John, nursing him back to health. 

_He’s going to be fine,_ he told himself. _And he’ll appreciate that I saved him._ But would he be fine? What if his injury was something serious? What if he got worse? Didn’t Roberto need a CAT scan that time he ran into the concrete wall in powers class? Bobby found himself standing under a tree in a scrappy patch of park, staring at the face of his X-phone. With the Blackbird destroyed, the X-Men wouldn’t be home yet. In any case, he couldn’t talk to Storm or Beast. They’d make him come back. They’d turn John into the authorities. He scrolled through the school directory and dialed. 

“But I can’t tell you how he is if I don’t at least touch him, Bobby!” Josh Foley said in exasperated tones. 

“Look, I told you his symptoms! Is it serious or not?” 

“That depends on what’s going on in his hypothalamus. You have to get him to a hospital.” 

“Yeah, and the FBI’ll be there five minutes later to arrest him.” He felt helpless and annoyed. “Never mind, Josh. I’ll handle it.” 

“No, wait a second,” Josh said. Bobby heard the phone clatter. Across the park, a group of young men were staring at him with hard eyes. _Don’t try anything, assholes,_ he thought. _I’m a fucking X-Man!_

“Bobby?” Josh’s voice startled him. “Phone this number.” He recited a phone number with a San Francisco area code. “Ask for Caducea. Tell her you were a student of Professor Xavier’s. She’ll help John. In the meantime, get him some Tylenol, keep him off his feet, and don’t let him get too upset.” 

At the drug store, Bobby couldn’t help telling the clerk more details than he needed to. 

“Here you go,” the man said, handing him the pills. “I hope your boyfriend feels better soon.” Bobby looked up surprised, but then blushed and smiled a delighted smile. 

“Me too, thanks!” 

 

*** 

 

The door chime was subtle and musical and it had to play more than once before Kitty awoke with a “Whufuh?” followed by a confused, “Come in?” 

The stainless steel handle turned, the bleached oak door swung open and Warren Worthington III stuck his head into the small room. “Good morning, Kitty. I was wondering if you wanted to start the day working out with me.” 

She pushed the hair from her face and squinted at the alarm clock. 7:30. The X-Men had crossed the country, defeated Magneto’s army and recovered Jimmy Renner (source of the mutant cure) less than 12 hours ago. If this clown seriously thought she was going to get out of bed before 11… But then she looked at that face, at those cheekbones and that small, ripe plum of a mouth and she knew she had no choice. Lust was bad for sleep. Everyone said so. 

“Sure, okay. Is it 7:30 _already_?” she asked. “Wow, you shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.” 

Worthington grinned. He entered the room and placed a set of sweats and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice on the dresser. “See you in five minutes. The big blue door at the end of the hall.” 

Kitty, Warren, Storm, Beast, Peter and Jimmy (inconveniently dampening their powers even as they were rescuing him) had run from the Phoenix force to the edge of Alcatraz, only to find a Worthington Industries speed boat waiting for them. They were quickly transported across the bay to the Oakland side where they docked in front of a small, modern office building right on the waterfront. It was wide, but only three stories tall, presenting a face of steel and glass, and bearing a sober if ambiguous sign: “Lofty Conceptuals.” Warren had phoned ahead, and by the time they entered the spotless, high-tech building, his staff had hot food and clean clothing for them. They’d been put up in tiny but comfortable guest rooms for the night. 

It had been hard to convince Storm to stay. She’d wanted to take to the air immediately in search of Bobby, Jubilee, and Logan, but Warren had convinced her it was too dangerous; Federal troops were pouring into the city and she was just as likely to get shot down as find her missing teammates. 

“We’ll locate them in the morning, Ma’am,” he’d reassured her. “I’ll get my people on it first thing.” 

Kitty had to admit it; Worthington’s confidence impressed her. She’d noticed his staff trying not to stare at his wings. Was it the first time they’d seen him unharnessed? If he had just come out to them as a mutant, they all seemed to be handling that milestone with aplomb. And then there was the flirting. He was probably definitely flirting with her. 

For instance: “I’m putting you in this room, Kitty, just across from mine. In case, you know, you need anything during the night.” 

“Pretty swank, Worthington,” Kitty said with a smile as he pushed the blue doors open and she got her first look at Warren’s training room. It was three stories tall, taking up one whole side of the building. Large workout areas were defined by pristine mats over dark hardwood. Weight machines and gymnastics apparatuses filled one side of the room. Jump ropes and exercise balls were piled up neatly at various stations. Huge, curving windows let in the morning sun, offering a view of the bay. 

They watched the boats in the harbor and the military helicopters doing sweeps of the bay and of San Francisco beyond. _This mess isn’t over yet,_ Kitty realized. 

“Shall we warm up?” Warren asked. “I want to get airborne as early as I can.” 

“I thought you told Storm it was too dangerous.” 

She watched his face harden. “No one’s declared martial law. They have no right to keep me grounded. This is my city and I’m going to fly across it. I’m sick of hiding.” 

Kitty tried to keep the concern out of her voice. “And if the military decides to use you as a skeet for shooting practice?” 

He smiled at her with that maddening confidence. “I’ll have a little chat with them. After all, my father is a close friend and associate of General Trask.” 

She raised her eyebrows, and then raised her knee to her chest, standing on one foot, rotating the ankle first clockwise, then counter. She asked, “What is Lofty Conceptuals, anyway?” 

“Well, my father thinks it’s my aerospace consulting firm. He’s been the major investor in all my companies, including this one. He wouldn’t be exactly pleased to know what I really use his money for.” He began a series of amazing wing stretches, and Kitty had to find a mat and begin concentrating on her own warm ups to keep from staring (for instance at the intricate way his shoulder muscles and the tendons in his long, fine neck worked in conjunction with the wings). 

He joined her on the floor for some more routine stretches while he continued his story. “I knew my father was working with the military on different anti-mutant technologies. He wanted to keep it a secret from me, of course, but I’ve been establishing my own insiders at Worthington Industries since I was 18.” Kitty knew he was now 20. He was a business prodigy, having started the first of several companies when he was only 14. Kitty believed in doing her research. 

“You’re spying on your dad?” she asked. 

“We’re tracking his initiatives. Pretty soon, we may have to take some action to stop some of the programs. We really dropped the ball on the cure — in fact he almost made me take it. But if I had known how far advanced the program was, I would have done something. Poor Jimmy. We’ll have to make sure he’s protected.” He stood up and spread his wings full. Kitty couldn’t help but gasp at their beauty. She wanted to run a finger along the feathers, see if they were as soft as they looked. She wanted to stare into his dazzling eyes for, like, a century. 

And she was staring. He smiled back and said, “I also use this place to nurture my other self: the Avenging Angel!” And with that he leaped into the air. She watched him thumb a remote, and immediately a series of rings, bars, and ceiling-mounted hurdles began rotating through the high reaches of the space. He dodged and wheeled around the obstacles at high speed. 

She climbed up on a vaulting horse to watch the dazzling show of aero-nautics. She realized she was gawking and chided herself. Since when did some cute guy with powers turn her into a gushing schoolgirl? Then she caught him watching her watching him, and she realized he was out to impress. Well, she could be impressive, too. _Look out, Avenging Angel,_ she thought. _You’re about to meet the Shocking Shadowcat!_

She discreetly moved into a squat, coiled like a spring, and waited for him to circle back in her direction. At the last instant, she jumped directly into his path, phasing just before the collision. He swerved in panic and became completely unbalanced. She was hanging casually from a pair of rings as he landed awkwardly on the mats. But Kitty wasn’t finished. She let go of the rings, somersaulting as she dropped 20 feet to the floor, phasing to cushion and silence her fall. 

She was in his blind spot now. She grabbed two of the jump ropes and ran at the grounded Angel. He spotted her and attempted to take off, but he was too late. She leaped at him, phasing herself through, but leaving the ropes solid. Warren toppled to the ground, face first and Kitty, her hands phasing and solidifying, quickly tied his ankles together. She spun him over on his back and used the other rope to pin his wings and arms to his side. With a satisfied smirk, she straddled her opponent, sitting on his hips to hold him down. 

“Don’t mess with me, Worthington!” she crowed, but then there was something strange in his eyes. Panic? No. Maybe some kind of desperate, excited… what? He writhed under her and she pushed his shoulders down, leaning on him. He bucked like a bull, groaning hoarsely and she rode him, her leg muscles working, her breasts testing the strength of her sports bra. But it was too easy; surely he should have been able to throw her off with those powerful wings… And then she felt it under her, against her ass, hard and unexpected as they struggled and humped. Her eyes went wide just as he gave a strangled moan and collapsed back onto the mat. He turned his head away, blushing and she jumped off him, confused. She looked down at her vanquished foe; a dark, wet stain adorned the front of his baby blue sweats. 

Amazed, she looked from the stain to his flushed face and asked, “Did I do that?” 

Warren’s untouchable confidence was gone. Turning over on his stomach to hide the evidence of his explosive excitement, he stuttered, “I, uh, like ropes, you see…” and gave her a moment to take in his meaning. “And I like you, too,” he added, shaking free of the ropes that held his arms, curling around to undo his ankles. Kitty watched the back of his neck as he worked. Even there he was blushing. 

Just then, the door of the gym opened and Storm marched in. “Warren? I’m sorry to be more of a burden, but we need to get back to Westchester immediately.” 

Warren, third generation captain of industry, was instantly back in control of himself. As he stood, showing Storm his back, he casually removed his t-shirt and tucked it into his waistband. When he turned her way, the stain was covered. 

“Yes, of course. I can arrange a plane.” 

“What is it, Storm?” Kitty asked, still reeling from what had just happened. “Why do we have to hurry back? Can’t we spend a few days —” 

“It’s the Professor,” she said, and now Kitty was totally confused. “He’s come back to us!” 

 

*** 

 

Bobby helped Caducea climb out of the cab, untangling the old lady’s many shawls and scarves that caught on everything they touched. She stood on the sidewalk, tucking loose strands of white hair into her wool hat, looking around suspiciously while Bobby paid the driver. He watched 25 dollars vanish into the man’s pocket, like magic beans he shouldn’t have parted with. 

Caducea muttered, “I should never have come. We’re not safe here.” 

Bobby had to work hard to keep his temper. She’d been complaining from the time she answered the phone and agreed to help. She’d complained when he picked her up at her apartment, and throughout the cab ride. “Magneto and his people are finished, ma’am. Nothing to worry about,” he said as cheerily as he could. 

“What about the army? They say troops are all over the city! What about the drug addicts in every alley? I should never have let you drag me into the Mission District.” He wanted to say that he actually liked the neighborhood, and that it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Despite her supposed fears, she didn’t seem to be moving towards the door of the hotel. _Old drama queen,_ he thought. _She’s enjoying her big day out._

“He’s up on the fourth floor,” Bobby said, indicating the door. 

“Hmph,” she said. “My city isn’t what it used to be.” 

Bobby resigned himself to following her timeline. “Have you lived here your whole life, Mrs. Caducea?” 

“Just Caducea. Yes, I have. Long before anyone ever heard the word ‘mutant.’ Not that we didn’t exist…” 

Someone across the road screamed and they both turned and followed the upturned faces. Overhead, a blond man with the wings of a pure, white dove was flying, circling once before disappearing over the buildings. 

“Warren!” Bobby shouted, but Warren Worthington III was already too far away to hear. 

“You know him?” Caducea asked suspiciously. 

“He fought with us against Magneto.” 

She leaned on her cane. “Ten years ago, before anyone talked about the X gene, I would have said it was an angel — a sign from heaven. I thought my gifts were from Jesus Christ himself. But you know, science spoils everything. I used to _believe_. Now I _know._ Can’t say it’s better. Let’s go see your friend.” She began climbing unsteadily up the stairs and Bobby ran to take her arm. 

They found John awake, sitting up in bed, looking pale and pissed off. “Now what, Drake? Bringing your grandmother around to gawk at the invalid?” 

This outburst actually made Caducea chortle. She left a trail of scarves on the floor and shrugged off her coat, holding it out for Bobby to take before moving to the beside. “Well, I can see you’re not dead yet,” she told John, her voice louder and more commanding than before. “I’m a healer, young man, a mutant like yourself, though not anywhere near as powerful as young Josh Foley. He’s our little miracle.” 

“Who the fuck is Josh Foley?” John spat, flinching as Caducea placed her dry and bony fingers on his head. 

Bobby told him, “A new student at the school. How do you know Josh, ma’am?” 

She had begun to hum tunelessly to herself as she examined John, who had grown still and looked a bit nauseous. “We healers have always recognized each other. While you other mutants were out forming little armies to fight humanity or each other, the healers banded together and dedicated ourselves to life. Not mutant life, not human life. Just _life_.” 

She sat down on the bed, pressing her palms against John’s forehead and temple. “Close your eyes and breathe deeply.” Surprisingly, John obeyed without question. “We knew about Josh when he was still a little boy. We watched over him and made sure his parents sent him to Xavier. Not that we want our boy to become one of those _X-_ men…” she said the name as if it were an off-color curse. “But he needs the chance to grow into the healer he can be. Perhaps the greatest of us all.” 

John moaned, a frightened sound like a child in the grip of a nightmare, and his eyes popped open, full of tears, unseeing. Bobby hurried to the far side of the bed, but John relaxed again, lay down on his side with his hands under his head, and closed his eyes. Caducea sat on the edge of the bed, panting. The strength seemed to have drained from her. Bobby stood there, feeling useless to them both. 

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked her. “Some orange juice?” He dug into his bag of groceries. 

“That would be nice.” She sighed. “He’ll be all right. I healed what damage I could. He just needs a few more days of rest.” She took the orange juice and drained it quickly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Angry boy,” she commented. 

Bobby looked at John who seemed to be sleeping. He looked so sweet and vulnerable. “He’s not always angry. He can be really…” he searched for the word. “Thoughtful.” 

“Maybe you have to love him to see it.” 

He went with her to the lobby and asked the clerk to call her a cab, handing her another 25 dollars, reeling a bit when he thought of the total of his one day expenditures. How would he keep them going if he ran out of money? How would he keep John? Caducea grunted, as if she had been hoping for more, but then told him to get back up to their patient. With relief, he did just that, running up the stairs rather than wait again for the slow elevator. 

He entered the room as silently as the squeaky floor would allow, hoping for some time to think, but John’s eyes were wide open, and filled with a terrible clarity. 

“How do you feel?” Bobby asked. 

John didn’t answer. He continued to stare until Bobby was practically shaking in discomfort. He straightened their supplies some more, feeling John’s eyes on his back. 

Finally, the boy in the bed said, “What do you want with me, Drake? You went to a lot of trouble to get me here.” 

Bobby turned and faced him, leaning on the dresser, gripping its edge tightly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted…” he remembered to breath. “I wanted to get you — get us — away from them.” 

“Them? Them who?” John had raised himself on his elbows. His face shiny with sweat from the healing. 

“Xavier! Magneto!” Bobby answered, his voice rising. “The X-Men! I-I needed to talk to you without anyone telling me who you were, or who I was!” 

“Whatever, guy,” John said, laying himself back down, closing his eyes. “The old men are both gone and no one’s worrying about Pyro and the Iceman. Say what you have to.” 

Bobby felt the ache in his fingers, but he couldn’t let go just yet. “I wanted to say I was sorry.” 

He let the words hang there. He released his grip and wiggled his fingers to let the blood back in. 

John’s eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. “For this bruise on my head?” 

Bobby felt tears in his eyes, but he wouldn’t let himself lose control, not when everything might be riding on what he said. “For everything. For abandoning you, for Rogue, for being a liar.” He had to breathe again, stop the sob that wanted to escape. “When you first came to the mansion, those first months, I don’t think I was ever happier. It was like the Bobby who I used to be as a kid came back, a Bobby who got somewhere under all the shit from my family and being a mutant.” 

“Good for you,” John said, turning away. 

Bobby had to move. He lurched across the room and sat in the chair by the bed. “No, shut up and listen! This is hard to say. So, yeah, it was this awesome time, but the better it got, the more scared I got. I couldn’t be what you needed me to be.” 

John turned to him suddenly. “I didn’t need you to be anything except yourself, idiot.” 

“No, I know. I mean — I mean I couldn’t be what I had to be to be your boyfriend.” 

“You mean you couldn’t be gay. Because what would precious Scott and precious Xavier think of golden boy then? What would they think if they knew he sucked cock as well as he made ice shields.” 

Bobby felt an absurd moment of pride. “Really?” 

John rolled his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ. You’re a piece of work, you know? For months you’re all over me, can’t get enough, keep going on and on about love and destiny and bullshit. And then Summers catches us fucking on my birthday, and I think, ‘Hallelujah! Way to rip off the goddamn band-aid!’ But no, not Bobby Drake. He has to rewrite everything: rewrite his feelings, rewrite history. And bang! He’s got a girlfriend… Bang! He was never my lover in the first place; never felt anything like _that_! Tell me something, Bobby. Did you spare one fucking thought to what I was going through after that day?” 

“John, you can’t blame me for everything you did. All your rebellion and —” 

“That’s not what I asked, is it? I asked if you knew what I was going through after you fucking abandoned me.” 

“No. Yes… I-I don’t know what I was thinking. After Scott… saw us… I wasn’t thinking straight.” 

John laughed. “Nice choice of words. You’re a true wit, Drake. Anyway, dickwad, Summers is dead now, so why don’t you go down to the Castro and get on your knees. No one around anymore to give a shit.” 

“No, I don’t want just anyone. Remy, he made me realize —” 

“Remy Lebeau? You and Gambit got together?” John put a hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, this soap opera just gets less and less believable.” 

“Yeah, we did. Just one night. My birthday. And he made me realize that… That I still love you. I never stopped.” 

“So I heard from reliable sources. Well, that’s great. I’ll sign a copy of my book for you some time.” 

Bobby got up and sat on the edge of the bed. “But… do you —?” 

John shot him a look. “Love? You? I don’t love anyone. Period. How many times do you think I can get my heart stomped on before it stops bouncing back? Including by you. No. No more.” 

“But St. John —” 

“No! As soon as I’m feeling better, I’m out of here. I mean, thanks for the save and all, and the goofy old lady, but I’m done. We’ll call it even, Drake, how’s that? You got my ass off Alcatraz, so I won’t try to kill you anymore.” 

And then Bobby did start crying. Deep guttural sobs shook his frame, and he moved back to the chair, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. 

Through his tears, he saw John staring at him in disgust. “Whatever, just keep it down. I have to sleep some more.” And they stayed there like that, in the room that sunlight couldn’t touch, for what must have been an hour, Bobby weeping an endless stream of bitter regret, John silent. The sun was setting when Bobby finally found enough inner resolve to stand himself up and get on with life. He looked down at John and saw that he was, indeed, asleep again. Bobby prepared peanut butter sandwiches for them and sliced an apple with the little green paring knife he had bought at the dollar store. 

John was awake by the time he was done, and without a word, Bobby brought the food over to the bed where they ate their sandwiches in silence. There was a crumb stuck to the edge of John’s mouth, and Bobby half reached for it before retracting his hand and indicating on his own mouth. John removed the crumb and ate it. They seemed suddenly embarrassed by each other and Bobby didn’t know what to do next. 

“I need a shower,” John announced quietly. 

“Okay,” Bobby said and helped him get up. He stood in the door of the bathroom while John peed, and then watched as he began to unbutton his pants. John was kind of wobbly on his feet, and Bobby was scared he’d topple over and hit his head all over again. He entered the bathroom and put a steadying hand on John’s elbow while he stepped out of the pants, and then helped him pull the t-shirt over his head. Little jolts of sensation went through him every time his cool hand touched John’s warm body, and soon his former lover was standing only in briefs. 

“Since when do you wear those?” Bobby asked. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just when I go to fight. Dunno, makes me feel safer.” 

Bobby couldn’t take his eyes off of John’s crotch, and when it began to swell, John turned away, quickly pulling off the briefs and stepping into the moldy shower stall. Bobby stood outside the shower as it ran, barely breathing, and maybe a minute later, John pulled aside the faded plastic curtain. His wet skin glistened blue in the fluorescent light, but his eyes were full of heat, his erection so hard it looked purple. Bobby’s hands were shaking as he put the towel around John’s shoulders. John let himself be dried and then led back to the bed. He looked scared as Bobby took his face in his hands. Then Bobby was on his knees, holding the cock in a firm, cold grip, licking from balls to head over and over as John groaned. 

Bobby took the cock in his mouth, diving deep, choking himself on its hot urgency, raising his hands to John’s chest to stroke the nipples. John grabbed his wrists and thrust into his mouth harder and faster until he made that broken sound Bobby was longing for and shot streams of jism, so hot they sizzled like Pop Rocks, into Bobby’s mouth and throat. 

Bobby stood up quickly, wiping his mouth, looking away in embarrassment, but then John’s hands were undoing his pants, pulling his boner painfully from his boxers. John toppled him over onto the bed, their faces close together. His eyes were wide, his teeth clenched in a grimace as he jacked Bobby off, hard and fast with a spit-wet hand until Bobby cried out, a spare sob from his crying jag breaking free, his cum shooting in long streams across John’s naked belly. 

They lay there in silence, the silence that follows a calamity, the death by fire of an innocent. Bobby felt the fatigue overwhelming him and he forced himself to his feet. He retrieved a towel from the bathroom and wiped John’s belly clean before he climbed into bed with him, pulled the covers up over them and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

They awoke almost 10 hours later, Bobby wrapped around John, John’s hand stretched out, free of the blanket as if he was reaching for something. They disentangled themselves and took turns using the bathroom, not speaking. 

“So, look,” John said finally. “I’ll stay here a few days with you if I can, until I’m feeling better and I figure what to do next.” He sounded like he was talking himself into something. “Just don’t think it means anything, okay?” 

“I won’t,” Bobby promised wearily. 

“You okay for cash? Can you keep us going?” 

“I’m fine,” Bobby said. His mouth was dry. “And then, what? You’ll take off?” 

“Yeah,” John answered and sat in the chair, his face vanishing into shadow. “I’ve got to get my shit sorted. I’m a fugitive; I’ve burned all my bridges. I want to get someplace where I’ll be safe and I can keep writing.” 

Bobby said, “I’m glad you want to keep writing. But wouldn’t it be easier if you had me to —?” 

“No. Look… I keep making the same mistake. I keep attaching myself to people, and either I fuck them up or they stab me in the goddamn back. No more.” 

Bobby decided he wasn’t going to cry again. He would do what he had to to keep them housed and fed as long as he could. Whatever John decided then was his business. He walked to the closet and, hidden from John’s view by the closet door, folded his X-uniform and packed it into the bag from the clothing shop. 

“What do you want me to get for breakfast?” he asked as he moved to the door, carrying the heavy bag. 


	41. Spending Our Days Waiting for Tomorrow

_Daragoj ot’ets!_

_And that, Dad, concludes my attempt at Russian in this letter. Don’t be disappointed, please. I’m probably the last teenager in America to send an actual pen-on-paper letter to his parents. We need to get you a computer! It would help you at the church, too. Honest._

_I spoke to Mom last week and she said that Illyana is doing really well at school. The hardest part of living away from home is I miss seeing her grow up._

_We are reopening the school and I am going to stay on to help with teaching while I decide what to do next in life. Ms. Monroe is going to be headmistress and also leader of the X-Men. But it’s not clear whether the team will be allowed to operate now that the government knows about us._

_Dad, something very strange has happened and I have some difficult questions to ask you. On the phone, I told you the miraculous news that Professor Xavier was not dead after all. I didn’t tell you all the details, and they are strange and troubling. The teacher I have known and admired for the last three years did die. However, we learned afterwards that he had telepathically moved his consciousness into the body of a brain-dead mutant. Strange as things sometimes are around here, this news was the strangest ever. Professor Xavier in his new body returned a week ago from Scotland with Dr. MacTaggert who is a mutant specialist from Europe (though not a mutant herself)._

_I say “returned,” but is it really him? I’m sure that it is the Professor’s mind inhabiting this body — he talks to me telepathically, and his “voice” is the one I’ve always known. (He’s still the only person other than you who calls me ‘Piotr.’) But what is he really? If he has a new body, can he be the same man? I bet you know where I’m going with this, Dad. Has his soul passed with him from one body to the next?_

_I can’t say I’ve ever understood what the soul is, despite the number of times you’ve walked me through Bible passages and tried to explain. But now, as I look at this stranger and try to figure out what’s familiar and what’s not, I find myself obsessed with the question._

_The Professor (actually, he’s insisting we call him Charles) is going through a difficult transition. He is having trouble getting used to his new body, and he is confused a lot of the time. Dr. MacTaggert says that his mind needs to time to map itself to the new brain. I know, this all sounds like science fiction, but I’m living it!_

_I volunteered to watch over him part of every day. I help him with his physical needs and also to answer his questions, make sure he doesn’t get upset or even wander away. It reminds me of the time we were all caring for Dedushka when his Alzheimer’s was getting bad._

__  


A sharp laugh from Kitty shook Peter’s concentration loose. He looked up from his letter and watched her lying on her stomach on the rec room couch, talking into her cell phone. Although the room was usually a hub of student chaos, it was quiet for once as the whole student body was in the cafeteria listening to a public safety lecture. 

Kitty seemed more excited than usual. Even — was it possible? — giggly. “No, I’m more interested in better human interfaces for computers. The mouse and keyboard will be finished in under seven years. You heard it here first.” She sat up, tossing her hair from her forehead in a way that made Peter ache a little. “Really! Well, then, I know where to look for project funding, don’t I?” 

She caught Peter looking at her and gave him a smile and a wave. 

“Is that Worthington?” he asked her _sotto voce_ ,and she waggled her eyebrows and turned away, laughing again at something the braggart billionaire was telling her. Peter stopped for a moment to consider his own jealousy. He knew it was immature, but he couldn’t help it. 

“Scott! Scott, where are you?” Charles called, and Peter felt a moment of panic; he had lost track of where his charge was. He turned and spotted the man sitting by the window, nervously kneading the edges of his newspaper. He was middle-aged with thinning chestnut-brown hair. After years in a coma, his body was weak and stooped. The Professor at 64 and handicapped had looked more robust than this pale figure. 

Peter rose and walked over to him. 

“I’m Peter, Pro… I mean, Charles. Can I help you with something?” 

Charles looked into his face and winced. “Oh yes. Scott is dead, isn’t he? I keep forgetting. Poor Scott.” His voice was weirdly close to the old Professor’s. Actually, it was like a stranger doing a really good impression, and it was more than a bit unnerving. The man seemed calmer now, less confused. “I have to get to my office and write some emails. I’ve been sitting here trying to decide whom I can trust with the knowledge of my… resurrection.” He gave a wry smile. 

Peter smiled back. “Yeah, I can see how that would be tough.” 

“Bring me my wheelchair, would you?” he asked. 

“You don’t need one anymore, remember? Your legs work.” 

Charles looked down at them and then smiled sheepishly. “Ah yes. I keep forgetting that I’ve upgraded to the new model. Help me, then.” And Peter helped him stand on the atrophied legs. They began to walk slowly for the door, when suddenly it was full of an agitated Wolverine. They hadn’t seen their teammate since Alcatraz, though he had phoned to say he was searching for Rogue. 

“You and me have got some talking to do, bub,” Wolverine snarled at Charles. 

Peter found himself instinctively moving between them. “Logan, we were getting worried about you,” he said, trying to bring the encounter to a calmer place. 

“We’ll do the debrief later, Pete. I got some questions for your friend here.” Peter could practically feel the adamantium claws readying themselves to pop. He weighed the merits of changing to his steel form. Logan would consider it a provocation, but if he had to protect Charles… 

Charles put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Peter. What do you want to know, Logan?” 

Wolverine brought himself in close to Charles. “Let’s start with the basics. Who are you and what do you think you’re doing in my home?” 

“Logan, my friend. I understand your doubts; I can’t say I don’t share them at times. But I am who they say I am: Charles Xavier.” 

“Tell me whatever you like, bub,” Wolverine said in a low voice and gave two sniffs at the air. “To me, a person is who my nose says he is, and you don’t smell like anyone I ever met.” 

And then Charles was speaking to Wolverine in his mind, but Peter could hear him, too. 

_*At the Grey’s house, when Jean was killing me, I felt your presence so strongly. You were in the next room, fighting against the Brotherhood and waves of punishing telekinetic force to try and save me.*_

Logan’s face changed, and Peter could see in it the pain and loss they had all felt when their teacher had died. 

“But I wasn’t strong enough,” he said mournfully, as if he had been cursing himself since that day. 

_*But you were! All that passion you exerted trying to reach me was the love and faith I needed to make the leap into the unknown. If it wasn’t for you, Logan, I would not be standing here today. Thank you.*_

Logan turned away from Charles, from them all, lowering his eyes, focusing on the floor. Charles, sat again on a chair by the wall. He looked up at Peter through those strange, grey eyes. “I’m sorry, Peter, Kitty. I had not meant to broadcast so publicly.” He put a hand to his temple. “I don’t yet have the control...” 

“It’s okay, sir,” Kitty said. Peter wondered when she had ended her call with Worthington. 

Logan spoke suddenly, and it was the first time Peter had ever seen him so lost, so uncertain. “Charles... I’m sorry. It’s not easy. Everything is telling the animal in me that you’re a stranger, but my mind tells me you’re my friend —” 

“And it’s the animal you’ve always trusted, I understand,” Charles said. Logan started to reply, but then turned and walked to the far corner of the room where he stood staring out the window. No one moved or spoke. 

The silence was pierced by the sound of approaching voices and the rumble of running feet. Seconds later, a dozen students burst into the rec room through its two entrances. Soon, the cacophony of laser bolts and mortars was exploding from the gaming terminals and riotous laughter was exploding around one of the work tables where a group of girls was gossiping about one of the boys playing the game. Charles watched all the chaos, beaming. 

Many students who had known the Professor before his death were wary of him, but some of the new ones were curious about the school’s “Lazarus” and soon he had a little group around him. 

“Do you remember my name this time, Charles?” one young boy asked. 

Charles smiled (the familiar smile on the strange face was like his voice — totally perfect except different) and said, “Well, not exactly, but if you imagine your name written on your forehead in bright green sparkling letters, I’ll be able to read it there. Hmm… Martin!” 

“Yes!” 

“Now do me, Charles!” said a little girl whose face was covered in a complex web of raised purple lines. “I’m imagining my name now.” 

“Yes, you are. You’re imagining it written on the side of a galloping giraffe! Now, if you could just rein him in for a moment…” 

Peter noticed Moira entering the room, moving to the far wall where she could observe Charles unseen, a scientist collecting data on her subject. Her beauty was sometimes hidden by her severity and by the white lab coat she inevitably wore, but Peter was always aware of it. 

Charles’ eyes were closed. “Yes, yes. I see your name now. It’s Guadalupe, yes? Ahh, and I see your dog back home. He’s in your room again, pulling garbage from your trash can. Naughty Caesar!” 

Guadalupe’s smile vanished. Charles opened his eyes and locked them on hers. He continued in a low voice. “Your mother is angry. ‘I’ll take that damn mutt and let him go in the desert if you don’t keep him under control!’ Now mamá’s in the kitchen, smashing dishes again.” Peter watched, unsure what to do as Guadalupe began crying. But still Charles continued as if in a trance, his voice now an imitation of the girl’s mother as rendered through an imitation of a dead man’s vocal chords. ‘What did I do deserve this? A mutant daughter! It’s your damn father’s fault. All those drugs, all those whores —’” 

“Charles!” Moira said sharply and came to stand between him and the girl. “You mustn’t go that deep without permission.” 

Charles looked up startled. “Moira? What are you doing here? I was in San Diego…” 

Kitty rushed up and took Guadalupe out of the room, murmuring reassurances. She gave Peter a worried looked before she and the girl disappeared. Peter felt terrible. He should have seen this coming, prevented it. Wolverine appeared at his side. 

“I fucking hate this, Russkie,” he said quietly. “Things that are dead are supposed to stay dead.” 

Peter was shocked at the callousness of the remark. Or was he guilty because, on some level he felt the same? “Any luck finding Rogue?” he asked, as if the subject could really be changed that easily. 

Logan shook his head. “It’s like she vanished off the face of the earth. I kind of feel like joining her.” And he slipped away as silently as he had appeared. 

Moira called, “Peter, please take Charles to his room. He’s tired.” 

Peter put his hand around his teacher’s shoulders and steered him toward the door. The raucous rec room had grown deathly quiet. The digital combatants on the gaming screen shifted mechanically from foot to foot, awaiting orders, while all the kids watched the telepath being lead away. 

“Oh, Scott,” Charles said hoarsely as they climbed the stairs. “I lost control. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten how hard it is to grow accustomed to your powers. Do you remember when you first came here? Even after Erik and I gave you the visor, you were terrified to open your eyes. You were so afraid you’d hurt someone.” 

“Professor, I’m not…” Peter began, but then decided that sometimes you just had to let it go. “Yes, I remember.” 

_What is the soul?_ Peter asked himself again as he pulled the blanket up over the sleeping man. _Is it identity? Is it what we mean when we say “Oh, him?” Is it what we miss when that person is gone? But don’t we miss the body, too? The sound of the voice, the smell, the touch of a friend?_

_Who are you, Charles? Can I be grateful you’re here and still mourn Professor Xavier?_

 

*** 

 

Hank was trying to revise the class schedule for the whole school. He had been working for more than an hour when he realized he wasn’t really reading anymore, just running his eyes up and down the page. He pulled off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his rather simian nose. After a year, he had finally grown used to his altered body, though every now and then, his reflection in the mirror still gave him a turn. He knew he shouldn’t complain. Sure, it was a hulking blue mass, but he could balance it on one toe like the greatest prima ballerina — on one finger, even. 

But balance wasn’t as easy to find for the School for Gifted Youngsters. Too many students, too few teachers. Too many bills and not enough fundraising. A legacy of hope versus a hard drive full of hard reality. 

“What is the government saying, then, Hank?” Ororo asked that evening at the senior staff meeting. She had stopped spiking and frosting her hair again and he was glad to see the fine straight brilliance of old beginning to return. How many hours had he spent contemplating that silky, white cascade? If only he had been brave enough to ask her out while he still looked human. Now he wasted too much time wondering if beauties ever truly fell for beasts. Of course, there were rumors that she and Nightcrawler… _No! Balance!_ he reprimanded himself. 

He told his colleagues, “There are loud voices demanding we be shut down immediately and possibly imprisoned for our dangerous tendencies.” 

Logan leaned back in his chair. “Dangerous tendencies? I have no idea what they’re talking about,” he said and took a swig of his beer. 

“Be quiet Logan,” Ororo said. Hank noticed how much the Wolverine’s sloppiness annoyed her. Would they be able to find their balance as teammates? “So, do we have to prepare ourselves to defend the school again?” she asked. 

Hank shook his head. “Those voices may be loud, but they’re not terribly pragmatic. Look to the media for signs of where the White House stands. The attack on the Golden Gate and Alcatraz is being portrayed as the work of Magneto and his followers, not as an argument to crack down on mutants in general. I find that very interesting. The President knows that he would be a fool not to use the X-Men — our powers, our technology — to fight _for_ America rather than against it. I think we might be given a fair amount of leeway, if we’re prepared to give them some things they want in return.” 

Logan leaned forward, looking suspicious. “Such as?” 

Hank removed his glasses and wiped them thoughtfully. “Such as Magneto.” 

The door opened and Moira entered. She looked at Logan’s beer and said, “Och, I’d have a brought a gin and tonic if I’d know it was that kind of meeting.” 

“Ah, welcome to our black cloud, Moira,” Hank said. “So nice of you to join us under it. Bad day?” 

She put down the papers she had been carrying and continued making little notations in the margins as she spoke. “I’ve been following up the random reports of strange symptoms among cure recipients. A pattern is beginning to develop.” 

Logan said, “I knew it! You don’t just fuck with people’s DNA.” 

Moira gave him a disapproving glance. “Thank you, Doctor Logan. Let’s hold off on conclusions until we gather more evidence, shall we? What we know is that about 15 percent of the cured are reporting mild to severe neurological symptoms. At the low end of the scale is chronic headaches; but the worst subjects are experiencing tremors, similar to those of Parkinson’s Disease. Of course, most of the cases are here in America. Everywhere else, the treatment is still in testing, so only mutants that got black market doses are affected.” 

“Keep us informed about the situation, Doctor,” Ororo said. “It may lead to political fall-out for all mutants.” 

Hank asked, “How’s Charles doing?” though given the general tenor of the day, he could predict her answer. 

“Worse. And I can’t explain why. We’re in brand new territory here.” 

Logan leaned forward. “Is it like when a body rejects a transplant? Maybe this body can’t handle such a big mind.” 

Moira put her hands up in surrender. “Frankly, your guess is as good as mine. All that I know is he seems to spend less and less time in the here and now. He talks to shadows, makes references I don’t understand, though I suspect they’re from a time before I knew him.” 

“Any references to Magneto?” Ororo asked and shared a look with Hank. 

“Oh, yes,” Moira nodded. “Erik’s name comes up a great deal. But frankly, something worries me more than his… fading away. As the days pass, his telepathy seems to be growing in strength.” 

 

*** 

 

Charles wasn’t in his room when Peter arrived to take him for his afternoon walk. He looked in the obvious places — the music room, the little sitting area in the bay window at the end of the hall — but the man was nowhere to be found. He was about to call an alert when Charles emerged from one of the spare bedrooms in the staff wing, pulling a wheeled suitcase. 

“Are you going somewhere, Charles?” Peter asked carefully. 

A strange smile crossed Charles’ face. “Hello, Piotr Nikolaievitch.” He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Did you think I’d call you Scott again?” 

Peter smiled in return with some relief. “Uh, it seemed like a possibility, sir.” 

“No, I’m feeling rather lucid today. Full of plans, in fact.” He reached up to pat Peter’s broad shoulders. “I have a surprise for you, son. Come to my room.” 

Charles moved along slowly, wheeling the suitcase, and Peter followed curiously. “Have a seat,” Charles told him as they entered his sitting room. Peter chose one of the comfortable, overstuffed antique chairs. He noticed a porcelain horse on a side table, chestnut brown with a dark, full mane. Picking it up carefully, he blew a layer of dust off the shining surface and examined the delicate painting on the graceful sculpture. 

“Isn’t it lovely? I found it in the attic. I’d forgotten all about it, actually, but I’m so glad…” he paused, lost in thought for a moment. “It takes me back to better times.” 

“Is that what you wanted to show me, sir?” he asked and Charles looked puzzled. Peter reminded him: “You mentioned a surprise…” 

“Oh yes! Right you are!” Charles looked him in the eye, and Peter felt a wave of calm flow over him. _*Nothing to worry about. Everything is fine; the Professor is getting better every day.*_

“Come in, Father Rasputin,” Charles said, and Peter watched the door to the Professor’s bedroom open to reveal his father, standing there in his rumpled suit, his long beard streaked with grey. 

Peter jumped to his feet and engulfed the man in a bear hug. “Dad! When did you get here? No one told me!” 

It was the best surprise he could imagine. “I’ve come to talk to you about the soul, Peter,” his father said. “Let’s sit down.” 

And they did. And there were tea and cakes on beautiful silver service. A string quartet was playing somewhere, the music invigorating and soothing at the same time. Peter wondered for a moment how his father had gotten there, and why he should have been sequestered in Xavier’s suite. But soon this confusion faded away like snow in the sunshine. Peter knew that he and his father had all the time in the world. There was nothing else he needed to do. No other duty to perform. No one he was supposed to be watching. 

 

*** 

 

Bobby remembered that among the lame gay jokes heard around his high school, “They have an opening for you in San Francisco,” was one of the lamest. Now, Bobby thought it wouldn’t be so bad. He liked the city. He liked hiking up and down the steep streets and the sudden glimpses you’d catch of the water as you crested a hill. He liked that it felt more like Boston than the overwhelming everythingness that was New York. He liked being young, gay and newly out in the city of Harvey Milk (the previous summer, he had secretly watched the movie about the gay rights activist alone in his room at the mansion. Three times.) 

He was in charge of his own life for the first time. He ate when he wanted, slept and woke when he wanted. He was taking care of himself and of John. He was a man, not a dog on the end of a leash. 

He and John had gone out together for just one day after John was finally feeling better, but halfway through their outing, they had seen his face come up on a TV show about mutant fugitives (the program had called him “Terrorist and cult author, St. John Allerdyce”). They had hurried back to the hotel, John hiding behind Bobby’s back, and since then he had been a virtual prisoner of his own infamy. 

So, while Bobby was out enjoying his new life, John was stuck in the hotel. Bobby worried that sheer boredom might make John hit the road sooner rather than later. But it hadn’t happened yet. In fact, Bobby was pretty sure that John had slipped into some kind of depression. A few nights earlier, John had shaken him awake in a panic, repeating over and over, “What am I gonna do? I fucked it all up! There’s nowhere for me to go!” Nothing Bobby had said had been able to calm him down, and he had finally put his mouth to better use, which achieved some results. The next morning John had been even more distant than usual, and claimed to have no memory of the middle-of-the-night melt-down. 

The only time John seemed engaged by life was when he would get a brainstorm about the new novel he was planning. Then, he would sit for several hours writing notes in the lined exercise book Bobby had bought him at the dollar store. It had Transformers pictures on the front. 

They rarely talked except to discuss what Bobby should pick up for dinner. But every couple of days, a wave of sexual frenzy would descend on them out of nowhere, and they would end up fucking franticly, almost like they were fighting again to the death. The frenzy would pass as mysteriously as it had arrived, and John would return to bed to watch the snowy TV that had no sound. 

But no matter how sympathetic he felt, Bobby couldn’t pretend to share John’s depression; not when his world was so full of novelty and promise. He stepped into the Internet café he had been using, and the cute Korean guy behind the counter, his long shiny hair in a ponytail, looked really pleased to see him again. “Hey, how you doing? Did I tell you I like your t-shirt?” 

Bobby was kind of embarrassed. “Uh, was I wearing the same one last time?” He still only had two shirts. What would his mom have said? 

“The color goes with your eyes,” the young man said and held Bobby’s gaze long enough for Bobby to get nervous and excited. 

“Oh, thanks… Um, do you have a free terminal?” Which was a dumb question considering there was only one other customer in sight. “I’ll take station #5, if that’s okay.” 

He opened his X-phone’s notepad and checked the URL and passwords for the admin backdoor to John’s website, a ghost site residing in an alternate, untraceable Internet secretly created by Doug and Jones back at the mansion. 

_“The certificate for this website was signed by an unknown certifying authority_ , _”_ the dialogue box told him. _“Would you like to connect to the website anyway? Cancel. Continue.”_

He pressed “continue” and another dialogue came up saying, _The farts in this room are registered to your ass. Please light a match._ Welcome to the Internet as imagined by two 16-year-old boys. Bobby entered the admin page, made note of some stats and logged out. It always cheered John up to know how many new people were reading his online novel, and Bobby liked cheering him up. 

He checked the timer on his session. He had five more minutes left to surf before he would have to pay for more time, so he quickly downloaded his mansion email. As usual, letters from Kitty and Peter asking if he was okay and when he was coming home; this time one from Doctor McCoy, too. It was funny how they seemed to take it for granted he wasn’t dead. Was it a sign of faith in his abilities? He didn’t know what to say to any of them, so he didn’t answer their emails. The guilt left an ache in his chest. 

As he paid, the clerk got kind of shy and finally said as he passed Bobby back his change, “So, there’s a free concert in Dolores park on Friday night. You think you might want to go with me? We could get dinner after.” 

Bobby couldn’t keep himself from blushing. “Well, yeah, but you see… um, I’m kind of taking care of my boyfriend while he’s, uh, recovering and…” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m dumb. Of course you have a boyfriend.” 

“No! I mean, I’m glad you asked. Actually, I’m not even sure he is my… boyfriend now. But I hope he will be again. Does that make any sense?” 

The guy laughed. “Yeah, too much. Don’t let him take advantage of you. You’re too sweet to be treated like that.” 

As he walked back to the hotel, Bobby found himself imagining a relationship with the clerk. Well, first he imagined himself fucking him right there on his cash counter, then he imagined the relationship. Would he be easier to love than John Allerdyce? Was easier better? He realized it didn’t matter. He loved John, and he knew how to make a commitment, so that was that. Still, if John did leave… 

Bobby was approaching their street when the familiar nervousness took him. He was always scared that he’d open the door of their room and find it empty, John gone forever. He began walking faster, and then something caught his eye: a flash of white high in his peripheral vision. He looked across the street and up to the top of an old three-story office building, and there stood Warren Worthington the Third, in all his angelic glory. He gave his wings another flourish and then retreated behind a structure on the roof. Bobby was about to shout up to him when someone tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Robert Drake?” 

Bobby spun around and found himself facing a man in sunglasses and a grey suit which bore an insignia of a stylized, white feather. “Maybe I am,” he said, trying not to sound flustered. “Who are you?” 

“Mr. Worthington wonders if you could spare a few minutes of your time.” 

“To talk?” Bobby asked and wanted to kick himself. _No, jerkwad, to knit tea cozies._

The man spoke quietly into his headset and then said to Bobby, “Please follow me across the street, sir.” 

Bobby found himself complying. Then he was passed from the care of this man to that of an identically-dressed woman just inside the doorway of the building. She led him up the three flights of stairs in silence, checking out each door they passed as if for lurking assassins. They climbed the final flight, and she opened the heavy door that led to the roof. 

Worthington was standing there in an alcove, hidden from the view of passersby on the street. He wore shiny Italian loafers, beautifully cut black trousers and a shimmering, silver-grey silk shirt. Bobby realized that the shirt must have been specially designed to let his wings out in the back. Were there tailors who worked exclusively for rich mutants? 

“Bobby, thanks for seeing me,” he said, holding out his hand. Bobby came forward and shook it. Warren’s grip was firm, but not aggressively so. 

Bobby wondered if it was some kind of trap, like Storm and Beast were going to pop out of the chimney with a net. “How did you know where to find me?” he asked. 

“Oh, I try to keep track of things. Don’t worry; I haven’t told anyone back in Westchester.” Bobby was silent for a minute, searching the young man’s eyes for signs of deceit. Warren added. “I haven’t told anyone about John Allerdyce, either.” 

“Thanks,” Bobby said and decided he would have to trust him. “What do you want?” 

“Just curious what your plans are. Will you become an X-Man again? Have you thought much about college?” 

“You sound like a guidance counselor,” Bobby said and couldn’t help laughing. 

Warren smiled. “Maybe I am! I just wanted you to know that if you do decide to strike out on your own, I might be able to help you. Just something for you to think about.” 

Bobby had no idea what the man was driving at. Trying to look nonchalant, he leaned against the bricks of the wall. 

Warren shook his head. “Um, kind of dirty there, Bob.” 

Bobby stood again and hastily dusted off his shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I go back to the X-Men?” he asked. 

Warren nodded as if he understood everything there was to know about Bobby’s life. “Yeah, they’ve been good to you, I know. But it’s hard to say what the future of that organization will be. The government will never let them act as free mercenaries again. And then there’s John. With the feds breathing down their necks, the X-Men won’t be able to help him, will they?” 

Bobby went back to not trusting him. “But you will?” 

“I need talent, Bobby. You’re both talented.” He laughed again as if everything was just a lark. “Hey, I’m just throwing it out there. Just laying out some options.” _Except you aren’t,_ Bobby thought. 

Warren stuck out his hand again, and Bobby, like a trained dog, found himself taking it. Bobby walked back towards the door, puzzled. The security woman was holding it open. 

Just before she closed it, Warren Worthington called to him. “Bobby!” The boy billionaire seemed suddenly less sure of himself. “Has, um, Kitty Pryde talked to you about me?” 

Bobby tilted his head. “I haven’t talked to her since Alcatraz. Why?” 

“Like, did she mention anything about…? No, it’s nothing. Never mind. I look forward to talking to you — and John — soon.” 

Five minutes later, Bobby was back in the hotel room, still confused. John hadn’t left. He was there, reading through his notebook, the air thick with boredom. Bobby decided not to say anything about Warren, and instead just reported the site stats to John. These only seemed to give him a moment’s pleasure, and then the deadly silence returned. Bobby had found the previous day’s newspaper down in the lobby, and he began hurriedly leafing through it for anything remotely diverting. 

“Hey,” he said, excited, as he noticed an article buried at the back of the news sections. “You remember the coma couple that you were so obsessed with?” 

“What?” John asked, showing interest. “They finally die?” 

“No. They woke up! It says here they opened their eyes just a few hours apart and were fully conscious within a few days.” 

John looked pissed off about this. “Hmmph. So the fucking wedding’s back on, right? Everyone gets a happy pass, and they sell the rights to the networks and buy a house.” 

Bobby shook his head. “Nope. Apparently there was some huge fight with the family and they took off together; left everything and everyone behind and they’re moving to LA.” 

John lay back on the bed, grinning from ear to ear. “Excellent! Good for them,” John said. “I bet everyone wanted them to be grateful and shit, and they refused to play along.” He was silent for a minute, and then said again in a low voice. “Good for them.” His stomach growled audibly. “Hey, Drake, you going for food soon? Get something from that Chinese vegan place. It’s not bad.” 

“Okay,” Bobby said quickly, happy to have another excuse to leave. This actually worried him; what did it mean that he was so happy to leave John? He pulled out his wallet and checked its contents. Three dollars? That didn’t seem right. He began digging through his pockets for the crumpled bills that must be hiding there. He came up with a handful of change and a rat’s nest of linty, unreadable receipts. Sudden panic gripped him. He walked quickly to the bathroom and looked behind the toilet tank. Nothing. 

He practically ran back into the main room and jumped up on the armchair to check the crack behind the framed print that was screwed to the wall. 

“No,” John said lazily. “You already cleared that spot out a couple of days ago.” 

Bobby looked at him in exasperation. “What are you talking about?” 

John rolled his eyes. “Come on, Drake. You don’t think I know everything you’ve hidden in this room? What else do I have to do when you’re not here?” 

“So, where’s my fucking money? Did you take it?!” 

“Don’t be a jerk. You took the $40 from the picture last Friday and the 20 from behind the toilet yesterday.” He flipped pages in his book, looking bored. “You should be paying me to be your financial advisor.” 

Bobby began to pace back and forth. They were screwed. He was fucking out of money. How did he let that happen? _Too damn busy thinking about the café clerk’s ass!_

He looked up to find John staring at him angrily. “What’s with you? Are we fucking broke?” 

“No!” Bobby snapped back, as if the very idea was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. 

“Well good. Get a few of those avocado spring rolls, too then.” 

“I will!” Bobby shouted, and stormed out of the room. 

Bobby walked out of the hotel. The wind had picked up, bringing in a gloomy cover of Pacific clouds. He sat on the steps of a boarded up store and opened his wallet again, as if he might have missed something. $3.78. That was all that was left. Shit. His bank account was empty and he had nothing left to sell. There was finally no other choice. 

“Hello, Bobby,” Storm said when she came to the phone. She didn’t seem as surprised or as relieved as he’d imagined she would. 

He had practiced sounding confident in his head, but it didn’t come out as good in reality. “Hi, listen, we’re okay, so don’t worry about us.” 

“Good to hear it,” she responded with maddening calm. 

“Now, I have a favor to ask, and before you say anything, just remember how much I helped at school, how I never asked for special treatment or anything, but any time Scott or anyone needed help —” 

“Get to the point, Bobby.” 

“We need some money.” 

“Really? How much?” she asked and Bobby suddenly felt like he was being set up. 

“Uh, I’ll pay it all back, I promise. But maybe, um, $700?” She didn’t respond and he started to stutter a bit. “B-but, I’ll have to tell you where to wire it. We, uh, aren’t going to divulge our location. I’m not telling you anything unless you can guarantee you won’t turn John in, got it?” 

“Bobby —” 

“Look, I know I’m not being fair, but I have no choice! There’s no one else who —” 

“Bobby!” 

“What?!” 

“You’re staying at the Excelsior Hotel on 19th Street. Room 412.” 

Bobby’s mouth dropped open. He looked around as if the street were full of spies. “How…?” 

“The X-phone is also a two-way GPS locator. It’s there in case we have to track an X-Man’s movement in the field, or find them if they’re wounded.” 

He felt like a dumb kid. All his pride about his newfound independence had been a joke from the start. The X-Men hadn’t let him off the leash; Storm had just put some slack on the line. 

She continued. “Furthermore, we think you’ve sold your uniform. You’ll need to get that back.” 

“Locator in the lining?” he asked sheepishly. 

“Mmm-hmm.” She went quiet, and he knew she wanted his situation to sink in. “So, here’s the deal. I’ll wire you the money you’re asking for, but you need to do something for us.” 

Back in their room, Bobby shifted from foot to foot, trying to get a word in edgewise as John ran around, stuffing his meager possessions into a plastic bag. “I’m out of here,” he shouted. “Don’t try and tell me they haven’t called the FBI already.” 

“Will you calm down and listen to me?” Bobby shouted back. “She promised she wouldn’t do that, and you know she’s not a liar.” 

“I don’t know shit.” 

“You _know_ , John. Now, listen. She has a mission for us. Yes, _us_. We have to find Professor X.” 

John looked confused-angry (as opposed to _hungry-angry_ or _horny-angry_ or _happy-angry_ — Bobby had learned to read the subtle differences). “Look for him?” he said. “Where? Is this like something out of Ovid? Are we supposed to find him in the Underworld?” 

“No, here in San Francisco. Who’s Ovid? Only he’s in a different body. Turns out when Jean killed him, he commandeered this mutant vegetable in Scotland. But now he’s kind of nuts.” 

Somehow this seemed reasonable to both of them, in a new mutant-world kind of way. But John still wasn’t onboard for the mission thing. He flipped through his Transformers notebook and then stuffed it into the bag. “So, what do I care if he’s on the loose?” 

“Storm and Beast think he’s with Magneto.” 

That stopped John. “What?! Magneto’s still here in San Fran?” 

Bobby could see that he had, at the very least, aroused John’s curiosity. He allowed himself to hope. “There have been unconfirmed sightings. So, what do you say? She’ll send us some money. I’ll give you half. That’ll at least get you a bus to somewhere.” 

“Where are my igniters?” John asked, referring to the impressive fire-starting gear he had acquired in the Brotherhood. 

Bobby didn’t know what to do. Working with John was one thing, but giving him that much power didn’t seem smart. “Uh, I had to hide them… somewhere away from the hotel.” 

“Hmph. Probably a locker at the bus station. I want them back.” 

“Okay, here’s the deal. If you help me find the Professor and Magneto, I’ll tell you where they are.” 

“Deal,” John said, and actually smiled. The sight was so surprising, Bobby smiled, too. John rubbed his belly. “Let’s go get that Chinese food.” 

“I’m still broke. Storm won’t be wiring the money until tomorrow.” 

“That’s okay,” John answered, walking to the closet. He fished an envelope from his jacket. “I’ve got about $150 here.” 

They hit the streets, following Storm’s leads. John wore a stocking cap and dark glasses so he wouldn’t be recognized. Bobby thought he looked really hot in this outfit, like some renegade DJ. Three days later, they found themselves staring down a street of run-down tenements and boarded-up stores. The junkies on the nod didn’t even bother hiding themselves. 

“Charming neighborhood,” John sneered. 

“It’s called the Tenderloin,” Bobby said, consulting the map on his X-phone. 

“Appropriately bloody. Anyway, all the clues have been leading us here. I think we’re going to find them today, Bobster.” 

The statement made Bobby anxious. The end of the mission meant the end of their time together, and he wasn’t ready for that. He had enjoyed their time hunting for Xavier and Magneto. John had the beginnings of a beard that made Bobby want to lick his jaw line. What would he do without this wonderful, maddening boy? And yet, he was resigned to the fact. “Let’s get some lunch before we start knocking on doors,” he suggested, trying to delay the end a little bit more. 

They sat themselves down in the darkest corner of a greasy little taquería on the corner. 

“And a beef burrito for the guy in shades,” the 45 year-old waitress in the baby-doll goth attire said with a bored expression. She scratched at her nose piercing. “Those things will kill you,” she told John. 

“Wow, you sure know how to sell the product,” he laughed. 

“I’m just saying,” she replied with a pout. “Eating animals will kill you first and then the planet. But hey, I’m not here to change fate.” She wandered off fairly oozing apathy, tugging at the top of her fishnet stockings. The boys cracked up. 

“See that?” John said. “That’s one of the humans we were supposed to subjugate, turn into the slaves of _homo superior._ ” 

“She’d be an annoying slave,” Bobby opined, but he could see John had grown serious. “You having a change of heart now that Magneto’s cured?” 

John looked pissed. “What are you talking about? Do you think I ever took any of that shit seriously?” 

“Uh, let me think,” Bobby said, scratching his chin. “You left the mansion and everyone who cared about you, you burned down first a hospital and then a cure clinic, attacked a convoy of federal troops, threw flaming cars at the army on Alcatraz —” 

“Okay, okay, I hear you,” John said, as if conceding some minor points. “I guess it all made sense at the time. I was sick of taking shit from everyone. Maybe I should have stayed in Westchester.” 

“Maybe,” Bobby muttered. “But maybe the school isn’t any better.” 

John pulled off his sunglasses and peered quizzically at his fellow detective. He rapped on Bobby’s head with his knuckles. “Uh, hello? Is Bobby Drake, mansion mascot in there?” 

“Quit it!” Bobby slapped his hand away. “I guess I’m just thinking about what Caducea said. Maybe the Professor and Magneto were having this war with each other. They had some fight and split up…” He suddenly stopped talking. For the first time, it occurred to him that the two men might once have been lovers. He knew Magneto had lived at the mansion for many years, building Cerebro with Xavier, together building their dreams of the future. He thought of the way the Professor had always talked about Magneto with a sense of personal disappointment and loss. This theory freaked him out, but it made all kinds of sense. 

John continued his speech for him. “They were pissed at each other, and they’ve just been getting the rest of us to do their fighting for them. What a joke.” 

Bobby found this new idea a lot to digest. He believed in the dream the Professor had fought for. But if they were fighting on the side of the angels, why were so many good people dead? Why were humans and mutants still so far apart? He sighed. “I just don’t know anymore. But maybe we should be doing something better with our lives than just following them.” 

“Well, today we’re actually being paid to follow them, so suck it up,” John said, a new glint of anger shining in his eye. “Maybe we can give the old fuckers a piece of our mind before we turn them over to Storm.” 

They spent an hour getting nowhere, talking to the suspicious denizens of the Tenderloin, before they came across a man babbling to himself on the sidewalk — not that this was anything new, but what he was saying caught their attention. 

“…lining the mutants up for morning inspection. Killing the weak, making the strong work one more day, always one more day…” 

John looked at Bobby. “That sounds promising.” 

Bobby wasn’t so sure. “It sounds nuts, is what it sounds.” 

“Yo! Street-dude!” John called and they approached the man who was dressed in torn jeans, no shirt and a nylon jacket with peeling sports-fishing decals. 

The man tilted his head way to one side and said. “Spare change?” He held out both hands and they watched a nickel vanish from one and appear on the other. The coin teleported back and forth a few times before John grabbed his wrist. 

“Okay, okay, nice trick. We’re looking for two old guys who live around here. Two mutants. I’m guessing you know about them.” 

The man pulled his hand back and rubbed the wrist as if gravely injured. “No! I don’t know! I don’t know Magneto, Magneto is not born, he is a boy, a prisoner! They line us up in the mornings, killing the weak, making the strong work one more —” 

“Hey, hey, don’t worry!” Bobby said and smiled at the man, trying to be as non-threatening as he could. “We just want to help Magneto and his friend. Won’t you tell us where they are?” 

This time, the man bent his whole body sideways and peered up at the building behind him, as if expecting retribution to fall from Olympus. “I don’t know! I don’t know they’re on the third floor. Honest! Don’t put me in the punishment room, please!” 

Bobby was making soothing noises at the man, handing over all the coins in his pocket, when he turned and saw John already heading into the front door of the building. “John, wait! We should discuss our mission strategy first!” He ran after John, calling back over his shoulder, “Thanks, sir!” 

“They came for us in the night,” the man replied miserably as Bobby hurried into the building. 

He found John punching the elevator button furiously. “John,” he said quietly, “If we just burst in on them, they might —” 

“Fuck! Goddamn piece of shit elevator isn’t working. Figures. Come on.” 

Bobby had no choice but follow, chasing after John up the filthy stairwell. At the landings, they had to push past garbage and broken baby strollers. The metal door to the third floor was smashed in at the bottom and scraped along the concrete floor when they opened it. It made a sound like a screaming demon child. 

“But which apartment is it?” Bobby asked, looking down the long, dim corridor. 

John wasn’t in a subtle mood. “Lehnsherr!” he called. “Xavier! Where are you two old fuckheads?!” He was banging on doors as he moved down the hall. Angry voices sometimes shouted back from within. “You two have caused more fucking trouble in this world —” 

Bobby shouted, “John! Hold it!” He pointed at one door on which an X had been crudely scratched into the peeling grey paint, as if with a knife. “Uh, this might mean something.” 

John gave a disgusted smirk. “Wow. Must be the Danger Room 2.0.” He rattled the knob, but it was locked. He pounded on the door with his fist. “Magneto! Open up! It’s Pyro, and we got some unfinished business!” 

“Professor?” Bobby called, “It’s me, Bobby Drake. Please let us in.” And then they heard the sound of locks being undone — one, two, and three — before the doorknob turned. 

Bobby had been told that Xavier was no longer the wheelchair-bound professor of old, but the sight of the able-bodied stranger still shocked him somehow. And immediately following was the shock of the apartment within. 

“Jesus Jumping Christ,” John said, his hand flying up to pinch his nostrils. 

The stench was of rotting garbage, urine and unwashed bodies. The boys peered into the single-room apartment, in shock at the disarray. Newspapers and books were strewn everywhere, as well as dirty dishes with flies buzzing around them. Bobby saw the scurrying of cockroaches and felt his skin crawl. At the table sat an unshaven, sunken man in a wool cap and dirty clothes. It took him a second to realize he was looking at Magneto, Master of Magnetism. 

“Hello, young man,” the stranger who was now Charles Xavier said with a smile, pulling the door wide. “I think perhaps I know you. Erik, we have guests. Please come in, I’ll put up the kettle.” He suddenly looked serious and gave a hesitant peek into the hall. “Hurry, please, you never know when they’ll come for us.” 

The boys entered, and now even John’s angry bravado was muted. “Look, old man,” he told Magneto. “You’re in serious fucking trouble here. The X-Men want you back in Westchester. They’ll take care of you, and you sure as fuck need it.” 

Bobby turned to the new Charles and said, “Professor, we want to help. You and Mr. Lehnsherr both.” He managed a weak smile. 

“No!” Erik cried out in a hoarse voice, devoid of its former power and authority. “We’re safe here in the cabin! Don’t make us leave.” As he sat up more, they saw one side of his mouth was slack. His right arm shook uncontrollably. He looked up at John. “Boy, are you a mutant? Don’t look out the window; it would break your heart to see the wretches.” 

“What are you talking about, Erik?” John said, a growing desperation in his voice. “You have the windows taped up!” 

_“They will come for us in the night,”_ Charles said, and it was his old voice. Bobby turned and saw him standing there, holding a beautiful ceramic teapot. And it wasn’t the new Charles, but the Xavier he knew, only younger, dressed immaculately in a white three-piece suit, seated in an antique wooden wheelchair. 

“What the fuck,” Bobby breathed. 

John’s voice had a note of panic in it. “Bobby, did you see that? There was this horse statue on the table. Now it’s gone.” 

Bobby squeezed shut his eyes, and when he opened them, the vision was gone and the new Charles was standing there, holding a chipped Chinese restaurant teapot. He heard noises in his head. Sounds of groaning and coughing. Somewhere in the distance, a scream. He grabbed onto John’s arm. “John, let’s get out of here. Something’s not right.” 

John in turn grabbed Lehnsherr by the shoulders. “Magneto, it’s me, Pyro! It’s all over. We failed! You have to come with us now.” 

Bobby became aware of light behind him. “Hey,” he said, “Who turned th 

… 


	42. Ghosts in the Smoke

The whistle blows and the day’s labor is done at last. John allows himself to feel a moment of relief as he puts down the heavy bag of concrete and marches with the others, silently, from Factory Building 16, past the cold hatred of the guards’ eyes and the cold steel of their weapons. The days are long and he has long since learned not to count the slow passage of the hours. During the 11-hour shift, he avoids gazing at the huge clock that hangs over the central courtyard, its relentless digital progress running counter to the diminishing life force of the prisoners. He doesn’t divide the day mentally by the midday meal and the two 10-minute breaks. He doesn’t even chart the path of the sun across the sky. Similarly, he pays no heed to the screams of hunger in his belly, or the strained muscles that never have the chance to heal before the next day’s labor aggravates them again. He just works. 

How long will he be able to continue like this? Months, years if necessary. Longer than his fellow prisoners who seem to fade around him from pale to grey to gone, weaker and weaker until they are no longer chosen for work detail. Then… well, you don’t want to be passed over for work detail. It’s all about focus, and he has only two things to focus on: the work and Bobby. 

The sun is setting earlier each day as they head into winter. He squints at the pale orb which strains to light the landscape through the smoke and haze. He wishes it would blind him the way it used to from a crystal blue sky. But smoke and haze always hang over the work camp. The haze is just the climate; the smoke is more sinister — made of equal parts factory exhalation and dark rumor. 

The day’s warmth is fading as the sun begins its descent. A chill breeze rises up and John pushes his hands into his pockets. He realized this week that the baseboard heaters in the barracks will not be enough to keep them warm when the winter winds blow down from the Rockies. In the past, in a world without power inhibitors, cold would not have bothered him or Bobby. But he will need to find them more blankets, through contraband, or the black market; through favors won or bartered, or by committing the lowest of crimes against his fellow prisoners. “Lowest” is a level he has had to redefine here, over and over. 

John knows Bobby is waiting for him outside Factory Building 8, sitting, shivering with cold and fatigue on an old fruit crate that has been there so long, no one has thought to remove it. But he will have to wait a few minutes longer. John knows he needs to take a walk by himself and gather his battered resolve once again. It is this resolve alone that allows them to survive here. He forces his aching legs to stride purposefully across the yard, between the mess hall and the recreation center (a building that is only used when UN inspectors visit to be easily reassured that the mutant “residents” are being treated well). He holds himself erect and keeps his gaze steely and dangerous. You don’t show weakness here, to others or to yourself. 

The public address system sputters and one of the pre-recorded announcements he’s heard five thousand times breaks the dismal silence of the camp: “Residents are reminded that it is a violation of regulations to meet in groups of three or more. Failure to comply will result in punishment.” He realizes he has mouthed the whole thing along with the upbeat female voice. As always, he is darkly amused by the particularly festive tone with which she colors the word “punishment.” The announcement over, he is again aware of the electronic hiss of the PA system that never ends, day or night. You tend to stop hearing it after a while, but it is there — an unrelenting snake that never sleeps, always behind you, poised to strike. Sometimes, radio frequencies sneak into the sibilance, barely audible, deeply intriguing, intimations that a world still exists outside the electrified fences and the woods beyond. 

He arrives in the front courtyard where other prisoners are milling around in their one hour of daily free time. Constant fatigue and hunger make them move slowly. Before the crackdown, a group of mutants had always been startling in its diversity. But here, one mutant seems the same as the next: colors dimmed to grey, sex and age blurred, all with the same dirty blue coveralls, shaved heads, and eyes dulled by hopelessness. Many prisoners stand by the high inner fence, trying to catch a glimpse through the perpetual smoke of the majestic mountains in the distance. After the first months, John stopped looking; even if your patience were rewarded by a glimpse of the snow-capped peaks, you would then be struck by the knowledge that you could never get to them. He long ago concluded it just wasn’t worth it. That being said, he sometimes gets through bad hours savoring the memory of a rider-less horse he once saw galloping through the mist — sleek, shining, chestnut brown, its mane flying in the wind. But mostly, it’s not worth it. 

Nor does he search the sky anymore for rescuers. While news here is only rumor, the rumors of Storm’s death are persistent. Ditto Cannonball; so why look skywards? However, he can’t stop himself raising his head high enough to see the horror — still sobering after two months — of the gleaming adamantium skeleton hung above the camp’s entrance. It is held aloft by chains on the shining wrists that pull the arms up and to the side in a too-obvious suggestion of the crucifixion. Someone’s idea of a joke? The claws are extended, the skull thrown back with its gaping mouth screaming to the heavens. 

Does the knowledge that he has no one to turn to but himself give John the resolve he needs? It’s kind of hard to say. He knows he is sick of being here in the courtyard. In addition to the maddening view, the oppressive hum of the power inhibitors high on their yellow poles is loudest here by the gate. He returns to the factory yard and finds Bobby sitting on the crate. The boy’s drawn face, its halo of curls shorn, recalls too keenly the skull at the gate. But he smiles at John’s approach, and though John does not return the smile, it is satisfying to see. He has kept Bobby from despair, the greatest killer in the camp. 

“How was work?” John asks. 

“Okay,” Bobby returns and winces at a passing pain. 

John furrows his brow. “I heard there was trouble.” 

“One of the guards didn’t like how somebody looked at him. He and two other guards beat the guy pretty bad.” 

“You didn’t stare, right? Remember, just lower your head while they get their fucking yayas out.” 

“I know.” Bobby grimaces again and bends down to touch his left ankle. 

“Here, let me see that,” John says, kneeling on the cracked concrete. Bobby pulls up the cuff of his pants. The skin around the week-old cut is red with infection. John would take Bobby to the infirmary, but most people don’t return from there. Show signs that you can’t work, you’re liable to get transported to the _other_ camp. He will need to score some antibiotics. 

He knows Bobby can see the concern on his face. “Is it bad?” 

“We’ll handle it. Come on, we better line up for dinner. Twice this week they ran out of food three-quarters through the line.” 

“Let’s go, then,” Bobby says and starts to rise weakly. John moves in quickly to help him up. “Thanks. Oh, man, I’ve been dreaming of dinner since two o’clock.” 

“Jesus Christ. What did I tell you? Stop thinking about the future. One minute at a time, one foot in front of the other. That’s how you survive.” 

Bobby laughs. “Yes, Johnny. I know, Johnny. That’s how we survive.” 

After a dinner of weak soup and hard bread, John takes Bobby back to the barracks to lie down. Although the camp holds both male and female prisoners, the barracks and most of the work details are segregated by sex. More than a few mutants that were rounded up were of indeterminate gender; when they got to the camp, they either learned to hide one side of themselves, or they soon disappeared. 

As Bobby collapses onto his bunk, John surveys the room for anyone who might fuck with them. Bobby just hasn’t got those self-preservation instincts, so John has to do it for both of them. But no one challenges him; the other prisoners sleep or go about their business, carefully neutral. He bends close to Bobby’s ear and murmurs, “Have a nap. I’ll be back in a while, okay?” Before he leaves, he lets his finger trace briefly along the resident bar code tattooed on Bobby’s neck. 

It is already cold as the last of the murky sunlight disappears. John fastens the button at his collar, remembering that it was tight when he first arrived. He is fading, too. There is still an hour before curfew, but he skulks along in the shadows between the men’s barracks anyway. You try not to meet guards whenever possible, even if you’re not doing anything wrong. Being a mutant is enough of a crime to merit punishment. Beatings, even murder are easy for them to justify under the general excuse of “maintaining order in the camp,” or more broadly, “containing the mutant threat.” 

John waits until the closest guard turns from the wind to light his cigarette before he slips through the door of Barrack L3. He nods in the direction of suspicious eyes and moves to the corner where he finds Peter sitting on the edge of Doug’s bunk. 

Peter has only been at the camp for six weeks, and while the hope in his eyes is already dying, he is still one of the strongest inmates. The guards made sure to put him in his place in his first days, but he quickly established himself as an invaluable worker who caused no trouble. John makes sure to be seen in Peter’s presence as often as possible. Being friends with someone as strong as Peter makes him safe from fellow prisoners. The fact that he exploits Peter just as much as their captors do disturbs him, but only a little. 

“Is he awake?” John asks the big man. 

“He’s drifting in an out. I still have his dinner here for him.” Peter indicates the bowl of soup and chunk of bread on the floor. 

“If you need a walk, I can watch him for a while.” 

John can see Peter appreciates the offer. “If you’re sure,” he says and rises. He looks down at the Doug’s face, pale to the point of transparency. 

“You think he’ll be able to work soon?” John asks. 

“No way. Maybe if he had a couple of weeks and enough food.” 

John looks up at Peter and says flatly. “He hasn’t got much time left. If he doesn’t work soon — tomorrow or the next day — they’ll take him away to the other camp.” Also called the Death Camp, the Last Stop. John hates being the bearer of bad news, but only realists survive here, and he wants Peter to survive. 

“I know,” Peter replies and John just sees a tear in his eye before he turns and leaves, his heavy body making the hollow wooden floor bounce and boom. 

“Hey, John, that you?” comes a thin, raspy voice beside him. He looks down at Doug who is smiling up at him, though his eyes are not really focusing. His voice is barely a whisper, his breath wheezing. “Did you hear who won the World Series? One of the guards… said it was the Red Sox, but I think he was just trying to make me mad.” 

“I’ll try to get the straight story for you, kid,” John replies, and he realizes he is nearly crying, too. He knows he can’t afford to be sentimental, so he looks away as he talks. “How you doing today?” 

“Tired,” Doug wheezes. “Peter came here right after work…” wheeze. “…and he picked up my dinner for me.” He pauses and cocks an ear and John listens, too. Behind the omnipresent hiss of the loudspeaker on the ceiling, a digital screech can just be heard. “You know what that is? Data transmission in the RF interference. If my… power wasn’t dampened… I could translate… it. Maybe help us…” He is having trouble getting words out. 

“I know, it’s a real piss-off, kid. The guards light a fire in the trashcans at night, and I just want to grab it! Take that flame for a spin, you know?” 

Doug grows so quiet, John has to bend low to hear him. He says, “I think… they’ll come soon to… rescue us. Pete thinks so… too. I want… to hang on for that.” 

Anyone else, John would give hell to. Dreaming about bullshit like _rescue_ just makes you weak. There is no hope, only work. You work, you get to live another day. But Doug has nothing left but hope. Jones didn’t even last a month. With his powers turned off, he fell quickly into hallucinations and then into a coma. Two med-techs took him away one morning and that was it. John looks down at Doug who is asleep again. He puts a hand on the boy’s feverish forehead, resists the urge to bend and kiss it. He looks surreptitiously around and, realizing he isn’t being watched, pulls an empty glass pill bottle from his pocket. He crouches quickly and pours half the contents of Doug’s soup into it, then tears away two thirds of the bread, shoving the precious calories deep into his jacket pocket. 

The door of the barracks squeaks open and Peter is back. “He still asleep?” 

“Yeah,” John says casually. “But he woke up and we talked. It was nice. He even ate some of his dinner.” 

The news makes Peter smile, but John refuses to acknowledge the shame in his belly. Bobby’s need is greater than that of a boy who is, for all intents and purposes, already dead. He and Peter shake hands earnestly and John slips into the night. He makes doubly sure not to get caught returning with the stolen food. He looks forward to watching Bobby eat the extra meal. His shame is gone. 

The next day, John tries not to think about Doug as he walks for the millionth time from the mess hall to Factory Building 16. He can see his breath this morning. He watches the little stream of steam appear and vanish as he ponders how he will find the antibiotics Bobby needs. Toad is usually reliable, though his prices are stiff. And what if he’s bought himself some privilege by agreeing to rat out his fellow mutants? There are so many variables to consider. Survival here is a dangerous game, but John is a good player. 

He walks through the checkpoint at the door of the factory and pauses in front of the sensor, exposing the bar code on his neck to its scanning ray. It beeps once and the guard behind the machine unlocks the turnstile without taking his eyes off the screen. John has grown very curious about what appears on the screen. His coded resident number, surely. His picture? Probably. Taken his first day here; freshly shaven head, face still full, eyes probably pissed off. But is there more on the display? Information about how bad-ass he used to be? That he stormed Alcatraz at Magneto’s side? Does it mention his novels? 

Lost in these thoughts as he pushes through the turnstile, he is startled by the shouting guards. 

“You useless mutie asshole! That machine is government property; who do you think pays for your clumsiness? The human race does!” 

John’s heart is pounding. For a brief moment, he thinks they are shouting at him; but it’s another prisoner, one he knows by sight only. The man is struggling through his terror to get his words out: “It slipped… There was grease…” The small horns on his forehead might once have been lethal weapons, but now they are useless. 

“Fuck your excuses!” the guard bellows and punctuates his words by slamming the man in the side with his heavy baton. The dance begins. It grows from a _pas de deux_ to a group piece, three guards falling on the depowered mutant with fists and sticks. John catches Peter’s eye, and in that moment there lies the danger of rebellion. John is flooded with memories of the Danger Room, of the things they could have done as a team. But rebellion is death and the past a trap. There is only today, only survival; so he looks away from Peter. But forces are moving inside him, and he cannot bring himself to look away from the outrage in front of him. 

The man is on the ground now in fetal position, bleeding freely from a gash in his head. One guard lands a savage kick in his side, and John hears himself say, “Okay! He gets the message!” 

“What did you say?” comes a delighted, sadistic voice. And suddenly one of the brutal trio is in his face. John almost pees himself. He drops his gaze to the floor, shaking. 

“I-I… I’m sure h-he understands his mistake now… Sir.” He stammers and he is too terrified to really feel his humiliation. “He won’t be able to work if you —” 

“Shut your fucking face, mutant!” the guard screams and a fist lands hard on the side of John’s head. His world balloons into shock, pain, and an explosion of colorful stars. He is on his hands and knees without knowing how he got there. The only thing he can think is _You blew it! You blew it!_ All those months of control and now it ends. Now, all he has to look forward to is a trip to the punishment room where the tortures of the Dark Ages are still in vogue. _Bobby, I’m sorry…_

But fate has decided that it is not his turn today. The Supervisor is there like a low-rent _deus ex machina_ , and John is saved. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” the Supervisor snaps. “We’re barely making our quota as it is, and now you’re getting your kicks disabling the labor. I want both those residents working, and if they can’t, you three are taking their place. Is that clear?” 

The guard who hit him grabs John harshly and hauls him to his feet, whispering in his ear, “Personally, I hope you screw up again, mutie. I’m looking forward to smashing up that pretty face.” John’s head is spinning and it is all he can do to keep himself from puking as the man saunters away. He’s just glad he didn’t thank the guard for the compliment. 

He spends the day dizzy and nauseous, but he keeps working, telling himself that each wave of misery is a lesson in keeping his mouth shut. At one point he seems to fall asleep standing up, because he has a momentary vision of an angel. She stands in the middle of the warehouse rotating slowly, like she’s looking for one of God’s lost lambs. She is such a wretched cliché with her long blonde hair and immaculate white garments that he thinks he must be brain-damaged from the guard’s blow. Surely a John Allerdyce angel should be a dangerously beautiful boy in leather and lace, as likely to sanctify you as push you down on his hot, heavenly scepter. 

After work, despite his dizziness, he is canny enough to strike the deal with Toad: antibiotics for a pilfered mp3 player loaded with crap tunes that he has kept hidden under the floorboards for just such an emergency. It won’t be long before someone else pays for that hit of nostalgia with some other stolen good. And that is the market economy. 

Bobby’s return to health would have been cause for only minor celebration in the world before the mutant round-up. “You’re feeling better? Great, let’s go bowling!” But here, it is like a gift. The antibiotics have cleared up his symptoms. Some more stolen and bartered food has brought his strength back — at least to the average lethargy of the average young prisoner. John realizes that the tight spring in his chest has loosened one coil. At the same time, he knows that you have to keep that tension up, or you’ll be blindsided. There is danger everywhere, and one slip can be fatal. 

In fact, John is more worried than usual because of a growing smell of insurrection that hangs in the air. Hopeless people start thinking things they shouldn’t. The acts of rebellion are small, but the authorities are well aware of what’s happening. Trips to the detention center, screams from the notorious punishment room in its basement are becoming more frequent. Over John’s objections, Bobby helps clean the wounds of one man the guards dragged back to the barracks more dead than alive. 

“Keep that up, they’ll think you’re collaborators,” John warns him. “Before you know it, they’ll say you’re in cahoots with terrorists.” 

“Cahoots?” Bobby says, shaking his head. “I didn’t know there were any cahoots left. Aren’t they an endangered species?” 

“Fine, laugh. Just don’t expect me to go down with you.” 

Bobby is suddenly angry. “What am I supposed to do? Just let him suffer?” 

John nods. “Exactly. Not your problem.” He grabs Bobby by the wrist and looks him in the eye. “You can’t let yourself feel so much. Make yourself like ice, Iceman. We’ll thaw out when we get out of here.” 

John shudders. Talking about a future after the camp is the worst kind of jinx. But otherwise what are they surviving for? _No!_ You do it because you do it. That’s all. Ice. 

One day, they go to the dining hall for their first ration of the day, and there stands Kitty Pryde. John has grown used to the sight of people from his previous life suddenly appearing here shaven-headed. But Bobby blurts out, “Your beautiful hair!” 

“Oh my god, I’m so glad to see you guys,” she says. And the girl is still an enigma, because she’s not as shell-shocked as most newcomers. Sure, her eyes bug out at the level of misery, her nose curls at the smells, but she is not reduced to a gibbering zombie like so many are on their first day. 

John gets behind her and pushes her forward. He murmurs “Line up with us, but don’t make it so obvious we’re talking together.” 

Bobby whispers low, “Rumor was, you were part of the resistance.” 

“No,” she says definitively. “All the resistance cells have been broken up. I-I knew people… but they’re gone. Taken or killed. I was _never_ with them.” 

John finds something strange about her story, but it’s just an impression; nothing concrete. 

“Who else is here from the school?” she asks. 

Bobby is excited to be talking to his friend and he is whispering quickly. “Peter’s here. Also Roberto, Louisa, Clarice, Santos… We’re all spread around, though. You don’t see them all in this quadrant.” 

“But Peter’s here?” she asks and Bobby nods. They reach the food station and hold out their bowls for the small portion of grayish stew. Kitty stares at it with trepidation. 

“Eat everything,” John tells her grimly. “Lick the bowl. You need your calories.” 

“What have you heard about Warren?” Bobby asks her and she looks up quizzically. 

“Who?” she says. 

“You know… Warren Worthington!” Bobby answers, confused by her blank look. And John is confused, too. Didn’t Bobby say that she was all gaga for the guy? Wasn’t he there on Alcatraz fighting with the X-Men? Suddenly, he notices a guard watching them. 

“Shut up,” he hisses. “Eat separately. Meet by the side door in ten minutes.” 

After lunch, Bobby points at the yellow utility poles. “Up on top, those are the power inhibitors. You can hear the hum. They’re on poles every 40 feet through the whole place.” 

Kitty looks around intently which makes John nervous. Are the guards watching? 

“So the active fields must overlap,” she concludes. 

“I guess,” says Bobby. 

She continues: “Which means that the field is weakest in the corners.” 

John says, “No weak spots that I’ve ever found. Your powers are dead anywhere inside the camp.” 

They grow silent, listening together to the monotonous hum of the inhibitors and to the hiss of the loudspeaker (today, the radio interference is an opera broadcast; little voices of passion rising and falling idiotically). 

“Bobby, give her the grand tour. I better move along.” He explains to Kitty, “Any group of more than two is against the rules. We might be planning something.” 

She tells him, “I’m just planning on getting out of here alive someday, John.” 

“Then listen to me, not to Mr. Blue Skies with the blue eyes.” He shoots Bobby a look, and then leaves them to their reunion. He skulks off in the direction of the barracks. He has promised to help sew up the coat of a prisoner whose tentacled hands are useless in the inhibitor field. In exchange, the man will give him three of his food rations next week. As he walks, he feels his mood souring. Is he jealous of someone else taking Bobby’s attention? He smacks himself in the face for being so full of shit. A moment of panic seizes him as he climbs the barracks steps. He looks around anxiously but he can’t spot Bobby and Kitty. _If that bitch gets him in trouble_ , he thinks, _I’ll kill her_. 

Over the next week, he watches Kitty carefully. What he sees is that she herself is watching everything, taking it all in as if she had a school report to write. She spends time with Bobby, but not much with Peter, which is also strange. The one time John sees her and the big guy together, they look ridiculously casual and uninterested, exchanging only a few words, not really looking at each other. 

He keeps lecturing Bobby on being invisible, and for once, Bobby complies; the camp is a place of growing terror as the suspicious administrators and their sadistic guards ramp up the campaign of intimidation. Most of the prisoners have a few bruises, gained from the smallest of missteps. Interrogations and torture continue. One desperate mutant tries to escape in a laundry truck. He is hanged in front of them before work one morning. That day’s breakfast is also cancelled. John finds himself bitterly blaming the dead man for the missed meal. The whole day is colored by the event. Waves of anger and terror pass almost visibly through the workers at the factory. Two prisoners are taken away when they begin to fight over a tool. Another has a panic attack in the middle of the day and has to be carried to the infirmary. 

Something is going to explode, and John keeps Bobby close by him in case they need to run and hide. It is the hour before dinner, and John is steering them towards their barracks when the guards begin shouting. He spins around and sees sudden movement through the crowd. Kitty Pryde is running for the outer fence. Guns are being raised, warnings shouted. 

“Kitty!” Bobby yells. 

John slams a hand over his mouth. “Quiet!” he hisses in desperate fury. 

Kitty’s headlong flight continues, and now she has pulled something from under her clothes, some small, shining device. She is running for the furthest yellow pole in the corner of the courtyard, and slapping the device onto it. The guards scream one more time and then open fire. The bullets pass through her. The inhibitor on that pole is dead. The prisoners make a noise like a collective moan, like they have been forced to watch something too wonderful to bear. And then Peter is at her side, and the steel of his body is breathtaking to behold. For once, the sun has pierced the smoke and haze, and a great shaft of light is glittering off his metal skin. He is machine messiah; he will lead them from this hell. 

But that’s not what happens. Kitty grabs Peter’s arm and they phase together through the fence and into the countryside as the smoke again shrouds the sun. Sirens begin to wail and bullets fly, until someone is finally smart enough to shoot the device she has attached to the pole. The power inhibitor cycles back on, but the pair has already vanished into the woods. 

There is a rushing sound in John’s ears. Is everyone cheering or is he having a stroke? Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something radiant and white. By the time he turns, it is gone. Was it his angel? He suddenly worries that she is a harbinger of death. His or Bobby’s. 

The prisoners are locked down in the barracks. No meals. Inadequate water rations. Overflowing latrines. Sirens are heard repeatedly, vehicles come and go, helicopters sweep through the sky. John hears officers yelling at guards, superior officers yelling at the officers. In the night, the barracks are shaken by a series of deep thumps, like giants have descended from heaven. John is terrified. He and Bobby hold hands across the gap between their bunks. 

The guards come for Bobby before dawn. John loses control, finds himself standing between a gun-toting guard and his friend. He is clubbed in the side for his trouble, and they are both taken away. 

As they prod and drag the boys across the dark compound, John sees that the giants are real. Through the smoke, the forms of immense robots can be seen just beyond the fence, their purple and chrome bodies lit at intervals by crisscrossing spotlights. Their glowing eyes scan the countryside. John remembers the plans from his time as a kept boy in Washington. Sentinels. Mutant-hunting robots. The boys are pushed through the doors of the detention center. The doors close behind them, like the mouth of the Leviathan. 

“Please!” Bobby says foolishly as they are locked in a cell on the ground floor. “Why were we brought here? We didn’t do anything wrong!” 

The guards keep their faces hard as stone, sharp as flint. It is the man in the meticulous black uniform who answers. “You are a terrorist, in league with Pryde and Rasputin. You provided them with information that allowed them to escape. We will be bringing you downstairs for interrogation soon. You will tell us the truth.” 

John sinks down on his haunches, burying his head in his arms as Bobby calls after the departing officer, screaming his innocence, babbling on about mistaken identities, about the purity of his ignorance. 

“Shut up already!” John shouts at him. “He’s Department of Mutant Control. Don’t you recognize the uniform? He doesn’t even think you’re human.” He shoots to his feet, screaming venom at Bobby. “You fucked us, you stupid naive motherfucker! How many times did I warn you? Low profile! No friends!” He grabs his own hair, pulling at it so his head sings in pain as he staggers around the cell. “I’m such an idiot! I could it smell it on Pryde that she was trouble! I should have fucking turned her in the first day!” 

Bobby has started crying; he is almost hysterical. “But you didn’t know! We didn’t know she was planning anything!” 

“Who fucking cares! She smelled like trouble. I should have turned her in, and we’d be fine. But now, it’s all over for me! I wasted all my energy on you. I’ve been trying to swim in shark-infested waters, and you’ve been a fucking anchor around my ankle. Now we’re going under, Bobby-boy. It’s all fucking DONE!” 

“John... please—“ 

“I wish I had never met you!” he screams, his face twisted into a mask of hate. He staggers into a corner of the miserable cell whose very concrete stinks of the fear of every unlucky bastard who’s ever been thrown in here. His stomach lurches, but there is nothing there to vomit but more stink. He puts his head on the cold concrete wall and disappears into his own misery. Bobby’s great gasping sobs seem far away. 

They keep them there a long time. The lights are never turned off. The hum of an unseen power inhibitor throbs in John’s brain until he thinks he will go mad. Screams from the basement punctuate the long silences. Bobby tries to talk to him, weak, whimpering like a dog, but John won’t even look at him. John is lost in a miasma of misery, far away from life. He thinks maybe he won’t be able to return. And that’s fine. Let him die far away from feeling, from pain, from anything human. Let him die an animal. Maybe animals don’t mind so much. 

But then the officer from Mutant Control is back, and instantly John is on his feet, and he is fully, horribly alert again. Whatever his fate, it will be faced as a fully sentient being, and that seems so horribly unfair. Bobby too has returned from somewhere, and John is amazed at how steady his voice is, how polite and ingratiating he can sound under the circumstances. 

“Please, sir,” he says, the soul of reason. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I’m very happy to tell you everything I know, but I know nothing. Can we sit down and —” 

The officer cuts him off like he’s swinging a machete. “We know you were involved in the escape, Resident Drake. We have sworn testimony from three witnesses who heard you plotting the escape of the two terrorists.” 

“No...” Bobby breathes and John can see him shaking. He wants to close his eyes, turn to the wall, but he can only stare. 

The officer continues relentlessly. “You will tell us everything. If you are especially cooperative, you might be spared execution, but that is not my decision.” There are two guards with him. To one he says, “Open the door. Take the prisoner downstairs to the punishment room.” 

The cell suddenly seems like a refuge, and as the magnetic lock springs open, it is like their home is under attack. And John can’t believe his eyes, because Bobby suddenly snaps into a fighting posture. It’s as if Jubilee is shouting in his ear, and he is straight and tall and ready to battle. And John must be an idiot, because he feels himself coiling to spring. Bobby attacks the guard as he enters, but John hesitates, and maybe they could have taken out the officer and two guards, but out of nowhere, there are suddenly more guards, and Bobby goes down in a sea of fists and clubs. 

It takes no more than a shove to send John into the corner, where he curls up like a bug. He watches through squinting eyes as they grab Bobby off the floor and drag him through the door. This can’t be happening. It’s like a terrible fantasy universe that he has been trapped in forever. Syracuse, New York, Westchester, San Francisco... these places that seemed so real; were they just a fairy tale? Maybe this camp is only the only place that has ever existed. But if this is the real world, how do you get out and back to that safe land that never existed? His brain is turning, turning, like a hand that has forgotten the combination of the lock. 

A horrible, animal noise escapes from Bobby’s throat as he’s dragged down the hall, and John is torn apart by it. The door of the cell slams shut and John finds himself at the bars screaming, “He doesn’t know anything! Let him go, please, he won’t bother anyone again.” 

Bobby is screaming his name as they drag him down the hall, and John knows he has to answer, to tell Bobby something that will allow him to survive what they will do to him. 

His mind spools back, back. He was 10 when his stepfather moved in. Maybe there was a whole year before the beatings started, but after that, he was an impotent prisoner of incomprehensible adult rage. How did that little boy survive? Hate. Pure, pulsing hate had been the only thing he could cling to until he had been able to run away. Hate gave him a core of iron for four long years, a core that could not be torn as his flesh had been. 

He wants to tell Bobby this, tell him to hate with a bile so black, there will never again be light enough to chase away the shadows. But he knows it won’t work. Bobby does not have that kind of blackness inside him. All that John values in Bobby Drake, the reason he has sacrificed and starved for him, is Bobby’s deep, abiding trust in the goodness of people. There is no hate in Bobby’s soul; he shines bright in John’s dark world. 

As Bobby is dragged around the corner out of sight, John knows what he must say. Face pressed against the cold, iron bars, he screams: “I love you, Bobby! Remember that! _I love you!_ I love you, don’t forget!!” 

 

The guards return them to the barracks two days later. John can walk, Bobby cannot. The extra blankets John secured for them are gone. He looks within himself for strength and finds a void. There is no will to survive, no secret hope of rescue. He realizes only then that despite all his insistence on living for today with no thought to tomorrow, he has been secretly expecting a grand, glorious mutant cavalry, complete with power beams and psychic whammies, bursting through the gates to free them. Now he knows it will not come. Or if it does, it will be too late for Bobby, and therefore for him. 

John strokes Bobby’s head as the broken young man whimpers and cringes. He makes soothing promises as he tries to get some food into him. “It’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay, Bobby.” He does not believe his own words. 

He works at the factory in a daze. It is not the same methodical unthinking that used to get him through the long day. Now, he is absent. After you’ve been to the interrogation center, you are treated like a leper. Either you’re seen as a source of bad luck, or it’s assumed that you’re now an informer. But one prisoner, a man named Dwayne whom he never gave a thought to comes forward. It is Dwayne who helps him stay on task when he is utterly lost. John knows he does not deserve this kindness. 

Bobby, of course, remains in bed. At night, John stays close to him. He tells him stories about Castle’s island — tales not recorded in his novel. They are mostly hopeful stories about small animals surviving predators. They spin from his mind, off his lips, without effort. He whispers them in Bobby’s ear like incantations. He is saying goodbye. Tomorrow, Bobby will again miss work. The next day, he will probably be taken away to the other camp. There he will die. The last light in John’s world will go out. 

John is shaken from his stupor by the sudden thought that when they come to take Bobby away, he will fight them. He will find a weapon and attack the guards. If he is vicious enough, they will kill him then and there. The color of the hope this engenders in him is black. Is black hope better than no hope at all? 

A minor surprise as he enters the factory that morning: the checkpoint at the entrance is being reconstructed. The sentry who scans their bar codes is standing right in the aisle before the turnstiles. His monitor is turned outwards where John can see it for the first time. He watches the display as those in the line ahead of him are scanned. What it shows is disappointing: the prisoner’s resident number in large numerals, a small head shot and that’s about it. The numbers are six digits long. John is scanned, and notes that his number is 214782. He moves into the factory, the same as every day. 

It is some time after their lunch break when he is hit by a realization. 214782 was the number of Magneto’s Auschwitz tattoo. He is carrying a heavy bag of concrete across the floor when he realizes this, and he comes to a halt, almost causing the prisoner following to crash into him. He staggers forward, his heart beating faster. _How can that be?_ he thinks. _What are the odds?_ He remembers making fun of his mother as a smart-ass 13 year old for buying lottery tickets. _You’re more likely to be hit by_ lightning _, Mom!_

But that’s what it said on the display: 214782. He does not return to Bobby after work. He finds himself marching around the camp in a daze. _Something! It must mean something!_ He wanders to the front gate and stares at the giant Sentinels who stand as mute warnings out in the hazy landscape. But there is nothing to consider. _It’s the same number, so what? It’s a cosmic joke. Magneto’s probably dead, and you will be, too_. And then he sees it, just at the edge of the woods. It’s the chestnut horse, running free and wild. It stands for a moment, almost like it’s noticed him. It shakes its mane and then begins to gallop again, vanishing into the smoke. 

The horse seems to remind John of something. He thinks he’s seen it before. Before he came to the camp, that is. Somewhere. In dreams of another life. 

Bobby is worse that night, moaning and crying out in pain. After the guard has made his rounds, John takes the chance of climbing into Bobby’s bed where he can at least give him the comfort of his closeness. Bobby eventually falls asleep, and John knows he should, too, but the memory of the horse haunts him. He must be dreaming because he finds himself following the horse into the woods. And there stands Kitty, her long hair restored, wearing her school backpack. Above her, from the canopy of trees comes intense white light. John cannot see her, but he knows it is the blonde angel. Kitty doesn’t seem aware of the heavenly presence as she tells him, “I saw the horse, too. In the cabin.” 

The siren goes off, and John awakens on the floor between bunks, shivering. He goes to Breakfast and brings Bobby back tea. “I want to go home, please…” Bobby murmurs. He is delirious. 

“I’ll see you in the afternoon, Bobby. You sleep.” Bobby will be marked as too ill to work for the third day in a row. John knows there is a good chance he will be taken away before the end of the work shift. 

_I saw the horse, too,_ Kitty said _._ But she didn’t see the angel. 

John’s mind is on fire. He walks towards the factory building. 

Dwayne has been looking for John. He comes up beside him and asks quietly, “How you doing today? Your friend’s in bad shape, I heard.” 

John doesn’t want the distraction of dealing with the man, but he doesn’t wish to seem ungrateful. An answer forms on his lips, but a thought derails it. “The horse,” he says. Dwayne looks at him strangely. “It’s the horse statue. From the apartment. Bobby and I found Xavier and Erik in the apartment…” 

He steps out of line without thinking and a Dwayne yanks him back. “John! Be careful!” he hisses. 

But John can’t stop talking now. “It’s the same horse, I remember.” And remembering throws his brain into turmoil. He had forgotten that day when he and Bobby found the two men living in squalor. It was San Francisco. He remembers. But there is a discontinuity. He remembers the months before their arrest. The reintroduction of mutant registration. The detention of so-called terrorists, the creation of the camps and the Department of Mutant Control. He remembers that he and Bobby were living in a house somewhere with other mutants. He remembers how the soldiers came at night and rounded them up. But he can’t put the two timelines together. How did he get from San Francisco to that house? 

He and Dwayne are scanned in. 214782 _. Magneto’s number._ As they move to their work stations, he speaks to Dwayne again. “Kitty didn’t know who Warren was,” he says. “Why not?” 

Dwayne looks scared. “Just shut up, okay? You’re gonna get us in trouble!” Dwayne doesn’t talk to him anymore after that. 

It is halfway through the morning shift when John again speaks out loud, because an answer has occurred to him. “Kitty didn’t know who Worthington was because Xavier _died_ before he came to the school. Xavier doesn’t know about Worthington… so Kitty didn’t.” 

The significance of this thought is so shockingly profound that he wants to reject it. Better — so much better — to have never thought it. Because now he must act. No more thinking. There is no time. They could take Bobby away any minute. 

He returns for the next sack of concrete, but instead of picking it up, he slips behind the pile. He sees the door near the delivery entrance. He knows it is not locked. Escaping from the factory is not, in fact, difficult. Your problems begin when you are not there to be scanned out at the end of the shift. He looks around for guards and then runs for the door. 

There is almost no one in the factory yard while the work shift is on. That will make him conspicuous to any guards who spot him. He dashes carefully from shadow to shadow until he is at the barracks. He runs, bent low to the ground until he reaches Barracks M12. He peers around the corner, his heart pounding. There is no guard in position there. They must have fewer on during work hours. Still, he finds himself too terrified to move. 

“Come on, fuckwad,” he hisses at himself. “If you’re right, it doesn’t fucking matter!” But that is precisely what he’s scared of. If he’s right, if he can get them free, then that is _everything_. If he fails, it will be the most profound failure of his life. He makes a mad dash for the door, pulling it open and diving through, shooting his foot back out again to prevent the door’s spring-loaded slamming. 

Bobby is still there. _Thank you, thank you._ “Bobby! You have to wake up!” The broken boy is slow to react, and John has a momentary panic that the irony gods have killed Bobby at just this moment. But he shakes him and Bobby stirs. 

“I didn’t do anything… not my fault,” he murmurs, but John has no time. 

“Bobby, you have to help me think… Do you remember San Francisco?” 

Bobby licks his chapped lips and says, “Harvey Milk. Star Fleet Academy…” 

“No, listen. We were there. In a hotel room on 19th Street. Someone called you… Storm! It was Storm! We had to find Xavier and Magneto. Do you remember?!” 

Bobby’s left eye is still swollen shut, but some light turns on in his right. “Tenderloin. Third floor. X scratched on the door.” 

John is breathless with excitement. He looks around nervously, listens hard for guards. “Right, exactly. Then what happened?” 

Bobby’s open eye glazes over. “Arrested. Taken here. They came for us in the night.” 

“No!” John says and grabs Bobby’s shoulders. Bobby flinches. “It doesn’t make sense. The memories don’t match.” He looks around at the barracks. The concrete is cracked. There are stains on the wood around the poorly-sealed windows where the wind and rain get in. He smells the stench of unwashed bedclothes, of misery. He lets himself feel the ache in his bones. With his tongue he touches the loose tooth in the front of his mouth. He thinks of everyone lost in the past months, Doug, Wolverine. All the pain. It takes bravery and a kind of madness for him to say the words: “None of this is real.” 

Bobby starts to cry. John is scaring him, overloading what little sanity he has left. But somehow John knows that time is short. “Get up!” he says and begins dragging him from the bunk. Bobby makes a high whine and John clamps a hand over his mouth, but he gets him on his feet. John pulls the ripped jacket around his friend’s shoulders and pushes his feet into his wrecked shoes. “We have to go. Now.” 

Bobby is gasping in pain and confusion as John puts an arm around him and begins dragging him towards the door. “Go?” Bobby breathes. “Where?” 

“I don’t know. Front gate! We have to leave by the front gate. That’s where the horse was.” He opens the door and looks around. No one. He realizes they only have a few minutes left until work shift ends. They have to get out before then. Surrounded by all the prisoners, by all their hopelessness, John will not have the mental strength to believe the impossible. 

They get to the edge of the front courtyard, hiding behind a supplies hut. Bobby is half-unconscious — too out of it to be scared. There are guards patrol-ling, guards in towers. Giant robots stand beyond the gate which is closed, locked, wired, electrified. _What if you’re wrong?_ John asks himself. He has to test the theory. He looks up at the humming power inhibitor atop the yellow pole to his left. He stares at the blinking LED that indicates it is live. He stares at it and says to the light in a quivering whisper. “You d-don’t exist!” 

Nothing happens for a moment, but that only makes him mad. And with the coming of that anger, his fear vanishes. They can kill him if they want, but he will never be afraid again. The inhibitor’s light flickers and dims. He is so surprised by his success that he loses concentration. The light flashes on again and, in that moment, a guard sees them. 

“Residents!” he shouts and approaches. John is breathing hard. The arm around Bobby’s waist is the only thing keeping his friend on his feet. “You better have permission documents, or you are going down!” 

Under the hiss of the loudspeaker, he hears radio voices cutting in and out. “They wish to cure us…” hisssss. “But we are the cure…” Magneto. 214782. 

“Of course we have documents… sir,” John says as the guard arrives in front of them. John leans Bobby against the wall and the guard squints at him suspiciously. As calmly and deferentially as he can, John tells the guard, “I’m taking this guy to the infirmary.” He reaches into his jacket, but comes out only with his fist. It’s a good punch, one that hurts his hand in a satisfying way. The guard drops, and John pulls Bobby forward, into the open. “Let’s go.” 

Magneto’s voice cuts in and out, draped in static: “…as _homo sapiens_ displaced… _homo neandertalis,_ so too … _mo_ _superior_ displaces _homo sapiens…_ ” They are words John himself wrote for the Master of Magnetism. 

More guards are calling for them to halt. His fear returns, but the ride has started and he can’t get off now. He begins loping toward the front gate, hearing safeties click off every gun. He is basically dragging Bobby at this point. A shot rings out, raising a clot of dirt to his left, and John yelps. 

He wonders if he can will the guns out of existence. But he knows nothing about guns; there’s something better he can try. Out loud, he assures himself, “There are no such things as power inhibitors.” He closes his eyes and feels for something. _There!_ In the mess hall, the gas burners are heating up the rotten slop they will feed the prisoners in another hour. John could cry as he feels the song of the flame. _It’s been so long, baby…_

Another shot, this one bounces off a pole near his head. John grits his teeth and lets out a huge guttural cry. The mess hall explodes, fire leaping into the sky. John grabs the fire, sends it everywhere, taking out every guard in the yard. He is almost giddy with power. Bobby has fallen to the ground in a heap, and John bends down and lifts him, throwing him over his shoulder and staggering towards the gate. Behind him, he hears the sound of a crowd. He turns and sees the prisoners pouring from the factory buildings, watching his inferno. They are cheering. 

With immense satisfaction, he begins to walk again for the main gates. They are standing open. Beyond them, the brown horse is waiting. As John passes under Wolverine’s skeleton and leaves the camp for the first time in all those long, terrible months, the horse turns and begins to walk through the smoke. John follows. Bobby’s unconscious body is heavy, but he will bear that weight gladly. He follows the horse past the giant feet of the immobile robots. He looks up at their flat, dead eyes, scared they will suddenly wake up. He follows the horse into the woods. 

He walks until his legs are shaking. He puts Bobby down on the ground, leaning him against a tree trunk. His friend is very pale. He seems hardly to be breathing. John is suddenly worried. Aren’t they free? Isn’t this the happy ending? 

“Bobby, hang on. Don’t you fucking die on me.” He hears the sound of galloping and watches in horror as the horse vanishes in the woods. “Wait!” he shouts, but then he sees something, just there in the shadows… a house. 

He heaves Bobby over his shoulder again and staggers through the dense trees towards the building, which is really more of a cabin — small, sturdily built of rough, square-cut timber. It has a yard where wood is stacked. There are two hens in a cage and a square of dark earth that must be a kitchen garden in the summer. Smoke rises from the chimney. He is sweating now, terribly tired. Almost dropping Bobby in the process, he tries the door. It is open. He pushes it wide and is greeted by warmth, yellow light, the smell of pea soup with ham. 

“Come in, my boy,” says a familiar voice. It is Charles Xavier, and not in his new body, but as he was when John was at the school. His eyes are warm, his smile avuncular. John’s mouth is hanging open as he surveys the room. Copper pots, earthenware jars labeled “tea,” “flour,” “salt.” And in the corner by the blazing hearth is Erik Lehnsherr. He is sitting in a comfortable easy chair, looking whole and healthy, wearing a cable-knit sweater in rich burgundy. His hair is longer than usual, but it is neatly combed back on his head. He is reading a large leather-bound book. 

“Put your friend down on the couch,” Xavier says and John does, with great gentleness, bringing his face close to Bobby’s to listen for his breathing. “He doesn’t seem very well,” Xavier says. He turns to Lehnsherr. “Erik! We have company. Come and see.” 

Lehnsherr looks up from his book and frowns. “Get rid of them Charles. Have you lost your mind?” 

John calls, “Magneto! It’s me, Pyro! Please, we need your help.” 

“I know exactly who you are, boy. Charles, this one always brings trouble with him. We won’t be safe until he’s gone.” He is fussy and anxious. He reaches out and nervously strokes the porcelain horse on the side table. 

John looks back at Xavier who is shaking his head sadly. “I’m so sorry. Erik is right. These are dangerous times. They come for us in the night.” 

John walks to Xavier in dismay. “Professor, I’m John Allerdyce. I was your student. That’s Bobby Drake... I think he’s dying!” 

Xavier turns away. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.” 

John feels his dismay turn to fury. “Nothing you can do?! You did all this! You made this insane place with your _mind!_ ” He grabs Xavier by the arm, surprised at how real he feels, how warm and fragile. 

Xavier looks panicked. “I can’t help you! Don’t you understand the danger?” He pulls his arm loose from John’s grip. “Take your friend and… and go back into the woods. Quickly, before they come.” 

John grabs his own head as if it might fall off. The madness is too much for him. He can’t go running out into these phantom woods. Where would they lead? Bobby will die if he moves him, that much he knows. Suddenly the earth shakes, a deep shock that rattles the dishes. The old men look at each other, worried, knowing. Another boom, and another. 

Lehnsherr says gravely, “They’ve brought the Sentinels on us.” 

John runs to the window and looks up through the canopy of trees. The robots are moving in the deepening twilight. Their eyes are searchlights, all-seeing. There is also movement in the woods. John squints at the shifting shadows, and suddenly a shot hits the window frame by his head. He drops to the floor as more shots ring out. 

“Soldiers,” Xavier cries in panic. “You have to leave now. This house offers only sanctuary enough for two.” 

“Fuck you!” John screams. “We’re not going anywhere.” He reaches for the fire in the hearth, but it will not obey him. “What the fuck? Come on!”` 

Magneto rises from his chair, strong and tall. “No, boy, we will not let you use your powers against us in our home!” Xavier turns away, his head in his hands. The room seems bigger, suddenly, the two old men farther away. John feels his hold on reality slipping. 

Shouts outside: “Come out with your hands up or we will open fire!” 

Magneto gestures and the door swings open. “GET OUT!” he calls and the furniture begins moving, herding John towards the door. Plates fall from the open shelves and smash as the Sentinels approach with earth-shaking footsteps. Through the door, John sees dozens of armed guards and soldiers and great robotic legs that bring down the trees in their path. He leaps over the animated furniture, running across a surprising expanse of floor, before dropping to his knees at Bobby’s side. He screams with the mad terror of it all. 

Light. Something is pushing through the air. A sound like a choir singing in haunting discord. He sees her, dressed in white, her blonde hair coalescing, pushing through from the world beyond, descending slowly to the wooden floor. It is the angel. She is here to deliver them to death. His mother was right all along about that Catholic shit. He shuts his eyes tightly. 

The sound of the choir squeezes itself into a single voice: “MMMMMMMMMMmmmm _mmmmmmBloody Hell!_ ” 

John opens his eyes cautiously and stares in shock. The angel is dressed somewhere between a fetish hooker and a fashion model, all in white. Her top is a sort of cross between a bustier and a cloak; her skin-tight pants are laced with leather down the sides, vanishing into her white boots. Her makeup is pale, expensive and, frankly, kind of trashy. But the white gold earrings and the pearls are real, from the looks of them. 

“Charles, what on earth have you done?” the woman demands crossly, and Xavier looks at her like a little boy whose been caught with his thumb in the pie. 

“Done?” John gasps, scrambling to his feet, marching across the room (now twice as big as it was when he arrived) to stand between them. “Go through those woods and you’ll see! A concentration camp! Thousands of starving mutants! Torture! He fucking tortured Bobby!” he screams, pointing at his friend. He realizes he is crying. 

The woman closes her eyes and then grows pale. “My God, Charles. You’ve taken psychic terrorism to a whole new level! Even _I’m_ horrified.” 

Running feet. Soldiers are suddenly bursting through the door, guns pointed. The woman turns a furious eye on them and they vanish, like flames being blown out. She waves a white-gloved hand and the door slams shut. 

“This is outrageous!” Magneto shouts imperiously, but John notes that he is sticking to the safety of his increasingly distant corner. 

John feels like he has reached some sort of limit. He wants to run away from this place, away from sanity if possible. “Who are you?” he asks. 

“Emma Frost. I’m a telepath, Charles’ pupil for many years; but unlike dear Jean, I didn’t opt for the _exciting_ life of an X-Man.” She rolls her eyes and then peers around at the homespun decor. “Really Charles, you have to decide. Is it black leather or Martha Stewart you’re going for?” 

John has hurried back to Bobby’s side. “Please, Ms. Frost, get us out of here. Bobby’s really fucked up.” 

“Yes, severe psychic shock. I can feel it. We have to hurry or he could die.” She turns to Xavier. “All right, Charles, time to end this. Take the children back.” 

Xavier backs away from her. “No! I have to keep us safe! This is a trap!” 

Magneto calls encouragement from the corner. “That’s right, Charles. Don’t believe that witch. They’re coming for us!” 

Emma’s eyes are cold with fury. “Enough out of you, Lehnsherr! Your whole career has been one long paranoiac delusion. Time to retire!” She takes a step in Xavier’s direction, reaching out her hand. “Close down this house of horrors, Charles!” 

“NO!” the man screams and a wave of blinding light explodes. John spins away, covering Bobby with his body. The light subsides and he looks up to see Emma Frost and all the furniture knocked to the ground. Xavier floats in the middle of the room in a glowing bubble of light, naked, in lotus position. Gravity, or its illusion, is gone. Objects and people float through the cabin, which is now growing so quickly the walls are becoming lost in the distance. The window has grown to the size of a football field, and through it, John sees the burning void. Comets and cataclysm, Sentinel robots as large as planets, the screams of a million tortured souls. He climbs onto the couch with Bobby, holds them both down to its well-padded chintz cushions. 

Emma Frost floats by, upright (pick a frame of reference, any frame), straightening the fall of her cape. “Damn,” she says. “He may be completely addled, but he’s still the most powerful psionic on Earth. I’ll have to try something else.” 

“Hurry!” John yells above the din. 

She gives him a withering look. “Oh, do you think? And here I was, planning to dawdle. And my outfit is not ‘trashy,’ boy. It’s _Dior!_ ” The room is gone now. Xavier and Magneto are parsecs distant. Emma turns on her axis until she spies what she is looking for. “There he is. Erik Lehnsherr, I’m coming for you.” She floats down and puts a surprisingly tender hand on John’s head. “Keep your friend safe. Charles may have created this place, but it’s because he’s feeding off Magneto’s fears. It’s a classic _folie à deux_ with a psychic twist. If I can’t shut Charles down, maybe I can get to his better half.” 

She rockets away, vanishing from view in a moment. The couch is now the only recognizable object in a universe of chaos. It is their life raft. John lies on Bobby and hangs on for dear life. “I won’t let you go. I promise.” 

Minutes pass, whatever that means in this place. At one point, John thinks that Bobby is dead, but he still finds a weak pulse. He holds him tightly, their faces together, kissing his cold cheek gently. Then Emma is back, pulling Magneto through space. He seems dazed, his eyes drooping. 

“What’s happening?” John begs. 

“Lehnsherr’s exhausted, but he’s hanging onto consciousness. If I can just get him to let go, it will break the link between him and Charles. But he’s inconveniently strong-willed.” 

John cries out, “Magneto!” He reaches up and grabs the man’s leg, pulling his floating body down until they are face to face. “Magneto, it’s me, Pyro. Your lieutenant.” 

Lehnsherr’s eyebrows rise fractionally. “Ah yes, Pyro, my boy. Situation report.” 

The absurdities pile higher and higher. John almost feels sorry for the man. “Everything’s going as planned, sir. We’re... we’re ready to make the final assault against the humans.” 

The old man’s mouth drops open. “Really?” 

“Yes, sir,” John tells him. “We’ve won. You did it.” And now John finds that he, too, is so tired, he can barely speak. “Sleep, sir. Okay? I’ll... I’ll handle everything.” 

Magneto’s face relaxes and his eyes close. He licks his lips. “Yes, maybe just for a few minutes. You’re a good boy, Pyro...” 

“Hold on!” Emma screams and she is gone again. John doesn’t know what to hold on to, but he grabs Bobby’s shirt with one hand, Lehnsherr’s with another, and he is just in time, for someone has pulled the plug on reality’s bathtub, and they are suddenly plummeting round and down, through the bottom of everything that is 

... 

 

The world hurt like a mile-wide wound. Each of his senses carried the same message: pain. Was this what it was like to be born? John wanted to climb back inside the hole. He didn’t know where he was, but somehow the fact that his body was connected to the ground seemed like a good thing. Then he tried to sit up. Everything lurched and he turned his head just in time as he vomited with a loud splat all over the cracked linoleum floor. The under-taste of the puke was Mexican. A burrito he had eaten so, so long ago. Months. A lifetime. 

“Okay, it’s okay,” said a familiar voice. Someone was holding him around the shoulders. “Let me get you some water,” she said and his eyes focused on the face of Kitty Pryde. She was wearing an X-Men uniform. 

“What the fuck?” he managed hoarsely. He pulled himself away from her and tried to stand. His head spun and he landed immediately on his ass. He was back. Back in the dingy shit hole where he and Bobby had found Xavier and Magneto… when? It hurt to think. 

Another voice. Also familiar. “Stay down and breathe deeply, Pyro. Your mind needs time to get its bearings.” He turned his head and saw Emma Frost, the dubious angel, sitting at the beat-up kitchen table, looking pale and dazed herself. Magneto was slumped, head down beside her, Xavier — new Xavier — lay on the floor to her left. Storm was kneeling beside him, taking his pulse. 

“B-Bobby,” John stammered. He turned himself around and his head swum. Bobby was sprawled on the scrap of carpet by the door. Kneeling beside him was a kid with golden skin and golden hair who had one hand on Bobby’s head and one on his chest. 

“Ms. Frost, his vitals aren’t good,” the boy said. “I don’t understand.” 

John crawled over, pushing the kid aside. “Bobby! Wake up, come on!” 

Then Storm was with him, helping him to his feet, pulling him away from Bobby, and he was too weak to resist. “Come on, John, let Josh work. He’s a healer.” She pulled a pile of old newspapers off one end of the broken couch and sat him down there. “Kitty, I’m going out to see if the coast is clear. Call me if you need me.” She left the apartment and Kitty appeared at John’s side. He got the sense he was being guarded. 

The Frost woman had recovered faster than him and she now stood herself up, though a bit carefully. John noticed her checking her ass for stains from the dirty chair. She joined Josh on the floor beside Bobby. “He experienced a severe psychic shock. We could lose him. Can you adjust his serotonin levels as I instruct you, Joshua?” 

“I think so, yeah.” 

John called, “But he can’t be dying... It wasn’t real! It was just in Xavier’s mind!” 

Emma’s eyes were closed. He figured she was working inside Bobby’s head to fix him. Still, she was able to talk to him. “The mind is powerful, Pyro. You both believed you were there in that camp. That belief has somatic repercussions. Now be quiet and let me help him.” 

John stared in helpless misery for what seemed a long time. Tears stained his face. 

Kitty leaned in close. “Hey, she’s kind of a stuck-up bitch, but she’s a major telepath. And Josh is awesome. If anyone can help Bobby, they can.” 

Sitting still while they worked on Bobby was torture. Part of him still feared that this was the illusion and the camp the reality. He found himself leaning close to Kitty, but she didn’t seem to mind. He asked her, “How did you know to come for us?” 

“Bobby was supposed to check in at 2pm PST. Storm was already talking to Frost about the Professor, and she told her that you guys hadn’t called. Emma freaked.” Kitty looked guilty. “We… we didn’t understand how dangerous an out-of-control Xavier was until she told us. She said Storm should never have asked anyone but a trained psionic to track him down.” John felt his jaw tighten. Xavier, Magneto, Storm… they all loved to throw you into the line of fire while they hid in the bunker. 

A weak voice suddenly spoke up, “Erik? Erik, are you all right?” Xavier was struggling to his feet, holding onto the table, his other hand stretched out to Magneto’s slumped body. 

Rage flared in John, and he jumped to his feet, running at the man. “You fucking son of a bitch!” He slammed into Xavier who fell backwards with thump, raising his hands to defend himself. “You think everyone’s your fucking puppet! You built a little torture chamber and locked us up in it!” He pulled back a foot to kick his former teacher, but suddenly, he was no longer in control of his body. Like a tin soldier, he spun on his heel and found himself marching stiff-legged, back to the couch, arms swinging by his side. He gritted his teeth and strained against the invading mind, but to no avail. He dropped hard on his ass and watched as his arm reached for a discarded pie plate, which he perched on his head like a dainty chapeau. He looked up in fury at Emma Frost who was glaring at him evilly. 

“Are you done being a ridiculous child? Charles has no idea what he did.” She stared at Xavier with great intensity, and the man lay down again and went to sleep. 

John found that he could only regain the use of his mouth by calming down. “Sorry,” he managed after 10 seconds. Then his limbs were his own again, and he pulled the pie plate off his head. Sheepishly, he asked, “Bobby... is he going to be okay?” 

Josh Foley was sweating, damp stains darkening the underarms of his t-shirt. “Yeah, we got him stabilized. Wow, Ms. Frost. I could totally feel when you were doing stuff in there. That is so cool!” 

“Feel free to join my fan club; there’s a link on my web site. Now where is that Monroe person?” 

Kitty stood up and opened the window. Fog poured in, thick as cotton. It was night. John realized that he and Bobby had only been in the apartment for maybe ten hours. All those months, that whole miserable life that would haunt his dreams always, had happened in less than half a day. 

There were two lights approaching through the air. They were Storm’s eyes, shining in the dark as she landed on the third floor window ledge. She climbed in through the open window as Warren Worthington III in an X-Men uniform arrived on the ledge. “Can they be moved, Emma?” Storm asked, brisk and business-like. 

“If we’re in a hurry, I suppose so. Mr. Drake needs proper treatment as soon as possible.” 

Storm and Worthington flew Bobby and Magneto out into the fog. John sat in silence, trying to figure out how he fit into this scenario. 

“Where are they taking them?” he asked Kitty. 

“Back to the mansion. Warren’s letting us use one of his planes. He’s a temporary X-Man. I hope he stays.” 

John noted the smile she was barely repressing. “You and the blond goy? Okay, whatever works for you, Pryde. What’s going to happen to me? I figure the feds must be all over the school now.” 

Kitty looked embarrassed. “John, I don’t know. I-I guess it’s difficult —” 

“He’s coming back to Westchester with us,” Frost announced with great finality. 

Kitty shot her an annoyed look. “Well, obviously I’d _like_ that, Ms. Frost, but Storm has the final say. You might want to remember who’s the leader of the X-Men.” 

Emma sashayed past her. She laid a piece of newspaper on the couch beside John and sat down on it, crossing her legs with infinite ennui. “And you’d best remember that I’m not on her team, my dear. I say that John Allerdyce needs to be under my care while he recovers. If dear Ms. Monroe wishes my help with Charles’ recovery, and with Cerebro, she’ll have to bring Pyro along.” Emma turned to the window and smiled. Storm was there. John looked at her, wondering if there would be a fight. Kitty quickly excused herself and slipped out the door. 

Storm smiled a smile that said, _Don’t mess with me, honey._ But her actual words were, “Of course John is welcome at the School. At least until he recovers.” 

John found that his feelings went beyond relief. He had to hold back the tears that wanted to return. “Thank you,” he said in a quiet, hoarse voice. 

Storm said, “I’m going to fly Charles down. Then we have to leave. I don’t want my fog to interfere with local weather patterns. John, do you need Angel to carry you?” 

“Angel?” He looked at Emma. “Oh, you mean Worthington. No,” he said. “I can walk down with her. With Ms. Frost.” 

When he and Emma were alone, John said, “I saw you, you know. In the camp.” 

She was watching him with unnerving focus. “Yes, I was trying to break past Charles’ defenses all afternoon. I didn’t succeed until you distracted him. Was my appearance a comfort?” she asked with a smirk. 

“I just thought I was losing my mind.” 

“Charming,” Emma said and looked at her diamond-studded watch. “Shall we, Pyro?” 

“Just call me John, okay? I don’t want to hear... that other name anymore.” 

“As you wish.” 

He got up and followed her to the door. “Wait a minute,” he called and she turned. “I need you to do something for me. No, not for me. Before he wakes up, before he remembers everything, I need you to erase Bobby’s memories. Everything that happened in that place.” 

She paused, a hand on her hip. “I can’t.” 

“Bullshit!” he yelled, and if he was going to need diplomacy to get his way, he was in trouble. “I saw how powerful you were. A psychic like you can totally do that!” 

“Yes, but at what cost?” she replied, infuriatingly calm and cool. “You take a memory away, but it leaves a hole. The events can become like ghosts that haunt you forever. Your mind and body know something was there; they try to resolve the void. Sometimes it all works out, but sometimes it can go quite badly.” 

“But you _have_ to!” John whined, humiliated by his pleading. “Please! It wasn’t real! Why does he have to remember the pain? They beat him! Burned him… He won’t survive knowing what they did to him.” 

John could feel her enter his mind. Unlike Xavier, she didn’t ask permission. “You survived, why shouldn’t Bobby? You suffered the same pain and humiliation when you were only a child. And look at you! You’re strong as steel, Mr. Allerdyce. You’re like me.” 

“No!” he argued. “That’s different! Shit happened to me, and surviving made me strong. But it didn’t even _happen_ to Bobby! It was just Xavier and Magneto and their clusterfuck of a relationship! Bobby... You don’t know him. His joy... his light… Everything he is could be destroyed by this. Please, I’ll help him with the ghosts. With the void. But...” And now he was crying again. “...please, let him forget. Let some good come after all this bullshit they put us through.” 

Begging and crying. He barely recognized himself. But he knew that humiliation was a price he was willing to pay for Bobby Drake. And he knew this for proof that love lived within him. What a shock: John Allerdyce could love. That unparseable emotion that he had always pointed at and laughed — like it was the fat girl in the class — he could face it for the first time. 

She looked at him, and he realized that she was right — they were alike. Somewhere behind her every expression was a smirk of superiority. Except when things were true and serious. Like now. 

“Very well,” she said and closed her eyes. He watched her carefully, half-expecting some exorcised demon to leap from her forehead and fall to the earth, choking. But she simply opened her eyes after a short time and said. “It’s done. Let’s go before Storm conveniently forgets about us.” 

They descended the stairs in silence and marched out into the cool night. Storm’s fog was starting to dissipate. He could see the large black van down the street where the others were waiting. They were halfway there when Emma stopped him with a hand on his arm. 

“You know,” she said, “Everyone goes on and on about bloody Jean Grey as if she were the mutant messiah. But seriously? She spent all those months with you and didn’t realize how simple it was to turn it on?” Utterly confused, John watched Emma close her eyes again, this time for no more than two seconds. “There, I think you’ll enjoy that,” she said, smirk back in place, and marched to the vehicle. 

John was about to follow, demanding to know what the psychic witch was up to, rummaging around in his thoughts... 

...when he felt it. A clean certainty. As natural in him as his heart beat. He held up his index finger and looked at it. As simply as that, a flame appeared at the tip. Pure, perfect. His. 

Kitty phased through the side of the van and screamed, “Yo, Allerdyce! Train is moving out!” 

He extinguished the fire and ran to join them. 


	43. Loose Threads and the Ties That Bind

Part I: December 

John and Peter walked through the familiar corridors together. John’s feelings about being back in Westchester could best be described as “complex.” He scowled and scratched at the patchy beard that he had grown. He had planned to shave, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to disguise his all-too infamous face. 

“We have almost 75 students now,” Peter was telling him, “So if you could help with the teaching while you’re here, it would be really appreciated.” 

John responded with a non-committal grunt. 

He looked through the open door of one of the classrooms, at the circle of young mutants taking notes as some teacher he didn’t recognize lectured them on Geography. The maps on the wall were the same as they had been when he had been a student here. He did some quick math and was shocked to realize it had only been 14 months since Stryker’s raid on the school, since he had left them all behind at Alkali Lake. It felt like years; years of danger, adventure, disillusionment. 

A kid with long, orange hair noticed him at the door and immediately whispered excitedly to his neighbor. Within seconds, the whole room was staring his way, including the teacher. 

“How ya doin’?” John said, caught off guard. 

Peter gave a wave. “Sorry Mr. Padawa,” he said and led John away by the arm. “Everyone’s pretty excited to have you back. You’re a bit of a legend around here. Probably half of them have already read your novel. I bet you could be a really inspirational English teacher.” 

“Okay, cool it with the sales pitch,” he replied, but he felt pretty good about his little bit of fame. 

John and Bobby had spent the days since they’d arrived in the infirmary under the supervision of the school’s doctor and Emma Frost. John had just been released, but they were deliberately keeping Bobby in a coma to heal the psychic shock. Even though John knew Frost and Dr. Selvananthan had the situation under control, he was getting desperate to see his boy’s eyes and hear his voice. 

Peter led him to the foyer where they sat down in a couple of arm chairs. Christmas decorations were already up, and John wondered if he’d be here to celebrate with everyone. He picked up that morning’s _Times_ from a side table and glanced at the top stories. Fugitive Chinese gang leader, Cassius Kwan had been found in an alley behind FBI headquarters in LA, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He had a broken arm and was, reportedly, covered in numerous small burns. 

“Crime doesn’t pay, buddy,” John muttered. He asked Peter, “Why is the school still open? I looked out the window and saw the Army outside guarding the place. They must be pretty spooked about this being a training ground for future mutant terrorists. Not to mention home of the X-Men.” 

“Everything’s still up in the air. We’re living in an uneasy truce and the terms change day by day. Hank’s been on the phone or in meetings with Washington 24/7 since we got back. Right now, they’re not allowed in and we’re not allowed out.” 

“Fuck! We’re prisoners.” 

“I guess, but on the other hand, they could be storming the place, taking away anyone they thought was dangerous, dismantling the sub-basement or whatever. The fact that they haven’t done that means we might be winning in the negotiations. Hank’s convincing them that with all the angry mutants still out there, it’s better to have us on their side like we were at Alcatraz. Better than having us as enemies in a future human-mutant war.” 

“Do they know I’m here?” John asked bluntly. “I mean, I’m happy to hang with you, Pete, but it’s pretty clear you’re guarding me.” 

Peter looked ashamed. “We took a chance bringing you back to the mansion. If the feds know we have Magneto’s number two under our roof —” 

“Not to mention Magneto himself…” John said with a smirk. “And you don’t want me to do anything dumb. Okay, listen, and you can tell Storm this: I’m not going to cause any problems. I won’t tell anyone outside that I’m here. I won’t burn the place down or use the photocopier to print revolutionary pamphlets.” 

Peter laughed at that. “I’ll let her know.” 

John looked away and cleared his throat. “Okay, well thanks, I guess. I admire your collective balls. I mean, I’m surprised you’re not throwing Magneto to the wolves.” 

“The last time he was in custody, they let Stryker torture him. I guess we’re looking out for our own. So, please just stick around and lie low until things cool down.” 

“Pete, I’m not going anywhere, at least until Bobby’s okay again.” 

Peter took a long look at John, as if taking his measure. “If you say so. Before you left, you acted like you couldn’t stand the guy.” He seemed to be waiting for John to reassure him. But when John said nothing, Peter continued, lowering his voice a bit. “What’s wrong with him anyway? What happened to you guys?” 

John got to his feet abruptly. The memories of the camp — false as they were — were still too close to the surface. “Nothing. Xavier just gave us a nasty psychic blast. Bobby took the worst of it. He’ll be fine.” He turned to the window, hoping Peter would take the hint and just drop it. 

“But what kind of… Hey, Sam, aren’t you supposed to be in class?” 

A meaty hand clamped down on John’s shoulder and spun him around. He found himself face to face with a furious Sam Guthrie who snapped, “What the chicken-fuckin’ Hell do you think yer doing here?!” Sam’s foot flew out catching John behind the knee, and with a fast shove, he knocked him on his ass. 

John’s heart was pounding, but he hid his shock with a smirk and a growl. “Hey, Guthrie, swell to see you, too.” 

“Let me make something perfectly clear, Allerdyce,” Sam said, standing above him, gritting his teeth. “There is no place in this house for Brotherhood bastards, and especially not for goddamn _traitors!_ ” 

Locking eyes with Sam, John rose to his feet. He felt a terrible urge to light up a flame ball from his bare fist. He hadn’t told anyone yet about his newly augmented powers, and he knew this wasn’t the time. Instead, he just set his jaw and shouted back, “Hey! If you have problems with me being here, talk to Storm!” 

Peter hurried between them. “John’s right, Sam. Storm’s okay with him being here. Keep yourself calm.” 

Sam tried unsuccessfully to grab at John again around the considerable obstacle of Peter. “You joined those murderers!” he snarled. “You betrayed the Professor’s memory for that psycho Magneto.” 

John stood his ground. “Last time I checked, Xavier’s right upstairs in his suite. And the Brotherhood is dead, okay?! Maybe it’s time we started working together instead of fighting.” He gave himself a mental pat on the back for that one. _Wow, John, doing the whole high-ground thing!_

Sam turned away and began to storm off angrily. Peter gave John an uncertain look — as if the fight had been his fault — and followed, trying to calm the boy from Kentucky. They argued in hissing voices at the foot of the stairs, and John walked to the other end of the foyer, not wanting to look like he had run away, tail between his legs. At one point, Sam raised his voice to say, “Well, if she lets him into the X-Men, I’m _quitting!_ ” John realized then that Sam must have made the A team. That explained the little ‘X’ pin on his shirt collar. 

Eventually, Sam turned and huffed off upstairs. “Sorry about that,” Peter said, walking over to John. 

“Wow, Pete, you really are a salesman, aren’t you? I’m not quite as welcome here as your bullshit made it sound.” 

“Okay, maybe I overstated it. You joined the Brotherhood. You’re going to have to work to regain everyone’s trust.” 

“Assuming I give a shit. Assuming I’m not going to leave first chance I get. Is anyone on my side? Are you?” Suddenly, a stab of pain caught him between the eyes. He staggered a bit and put a hand on the wall to steady himself. 

Peter asked. “You okay? I-I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

“I’m fine. Not your fault. Frost said I shouldn’t overdo it first day. I’m going back to the med lab to lie down.” 

Peter unlocked the subbasement elevator for him, but didn’t accompany him below stairs. John took that for a sign of trust. Or maybe Pete was calling ahead and telling them to watch out — the traitor was coming. Stepping out of the elevator in the cold underworld of steel, he looked down the hall one way and saw yellow warning tape strung across the hall where they were rebuilding Cerebro. Of course, with the Feds breathing down their necks, they couldn’t exactly go in and out with construction material, so work had ground to a halt. He walked the other way. The new doors for the Med Lab were standing in the hall, still in their packing crates. The damaged doorway, half-melted in some places, was still awaiting repair. Jean, he had been told, had made an impressive exit. 

Emma Frost was already walking towards him as he entered; so either Pete _had_ called ahead or else she’d sensed his approach telepathically. Before he could say anything, she put her hands on his forehead, probing. Her long immaculate nails, polished in white glaze, dug little divots in his flesh. 

“Good, your mind is healing quickly. You’re very resilient.” She removed her fingers, but he could still feel her probing. “I see you got a warm reception from your little friends,” she said. 

“Will you keep out of my thoughts? Fuck!” 

“Trust me, Mr. Allerdyce, your thoughts aren’t much joy. For one thing, your taste for bland, sugary men is as surprising as it is unappetizing.” 

He blushed. Somehow, Emma Frost was the only person in the world capable of actually embarrassing him. “Shut up,” he snapped weakly. “Can I sit down?” 

She led him to a chair and helped him sit. “Here,” she said more kindly. “I’ll do something about that headache. And I have a little surprise for you, too.” 

She stood behind him and smoothed her hands over his head. He could feel her psychic presence dancing around the edge of his consciousness. The tension of the day began to fade away and with it, the headache. 

“That’s awesome,” he said, feeling a slow, muzzy happiness suffuse him. “I had to deal with a lot of assholes today.” 

“I recall telling you to avoid confrontation,” she scolded. 

“Sorry, confrontation has a way of finding me, no matter what I intend.” He yawned. “Hey, you said you had a surprise!” 

“Hmm, I’m not sure it’s a good idea in your delicate condition,” she teased. “You might find it too… stimulating.” 

“What? You gonna flash your boobs? Sorry, not my poison.” 

“Have you ever thought of becoming a comedian? One of the vulgar kind who substitute sophomoric wankery for true wit?” She put her hands back on his head and said, “Hold on.” 

“To wha 

… 

 

He is sitting on a rough, wooden floor in a rough wooden box with a door and window cut roughly in its walls. The little room is decorated with thumb-tacked posters of superheroes and hockey players. The whole structure is swaying gently, and John realizes he is up a tree. The breeze is warm… a late-summer afternoon perhaps. He can hear lawn mowers in the distance and squealing children at play. A squirrel appears in the window and blinks nervously at him before making a hasty retreat. John turns to watch it as it runs past the doorway, and suddenly Bobby is there, sitting cross-legged right in front of him, barefoot, in cut-off jeans and a blue t-shirt. His tanned face is spotted with the faintest summer freckles. 

Bobby’s smile is full of mischief and delight. “Hey,” he says. “Glad you could make it.” 

John’s heart is racing a bit at the not-altogether-welcome feeling of being in another psychic Neverland. Nonetheless, he smiles back, and he can feel himself calming down, as if Emma is still soothing his stress away. “Where are we?” he asks, pulling himself into the same cross-legged position as his friend. Their knees touch. 

Bobby is excited. “It’s my tree house! It blew down in a storm when I was 11, but before that it was the best place!” He looks around appreciatively. “My dad and I built it. I guess it must be a bit bigger than it used to be… since I’m bigger.” 

Bobby reaches out and places a hand on John’s chest. The touch is so real that John forgets to be freaked out anymore. He returns the gesture, feeling Bobby’s heart beating strongly and steadily beneath his hand. He asks, “How are you feeling?” 

“Good. Ms. Frost says I can actually wake up tomorrow.” He pauses and looks up as if listening to something. “Well, hopefully tomorrow. She says it depends on my, uh, something levels.” 

John looks up, too, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “Is Frost here?” 

“Yeah, but not right inside. The club house is boys only.” This cracks John up. Bobby grins but then grows serious. “John, she says you saved my life.” 

John pulls his hand away. “What did she say? Did she say what happened to you?” He is already on the edge of anger. Frost had promised to keep the memories of the camp and his torture away from Bobby’s mind. 

“She said it was the Professor. That he was confused and he sent out a… psychic blast or something. And you shielded me from it. You called for help with your mind, and Ms. Frost brought the X-Men to save us. Please put your hand back.” 

He returns his palm to Bobby’s chest and remembers to breathe again. The sound of birdsong is a miraculous balm. He glimpses the Drakes’ house through the trees and wonders if Bobby’s parents are inside — some long-ago, idealized version of the uptight couple he met a year earlier. He feels a pleasantly cold sensation and looks down to see a sheet of ice growing across his chest under Bobby’s hand. John reaches inside himself and lets out a flame, which grows around them like a cocoon. The walls shimmer with the orange glow of the flames, the silver blue reflections of the ice. 

“Of course I saved you,” John tells him. “Just like you saved me. That’s what we do. Fire and Ice.” 

Bobby has tears in his eyes. For a second, his whole body seems to shimmer like liquid, shifting in and out of this reality. “Thank you,” he says. Then, “Oh, shit, Johnny! You lit Red Tornado on fire!” John watches the comic book hero go up in flames. They both laugh again before Bobby again looks upwards. 

“Ms. Frost says I have to go. I’m not supposed to…” he cocks his head quizzically. “Right… not supposed to be exposed to so much literal space.” 

“What does she usually let you see?” 

“Just flashes of stuff. Some of them are memories, some of them are what she calls therapeutic imagistics.” He leans forward and whispers in John’s ear. “And sometimes, I just see us having sex. Like for hours and hours.” 

John feels himself growing excited. He says to the ceiling. “Hey Frost! Think you could give us a few minutes alone?” He turns back to Bobby, but he is gone. And then so is the tree house 

… 

 

John raised his head, feeling heavy and all too real. Emma was standing in front of him. 

“I want to lie down,” he mumbled and she walked him to his bed. Bobby lay in the next berth, still unconscious, hooked up to the same machines he had been connected to for the last three days. John turned on his side and watched the young man he loved, knowing that he was getting well. He wasn’t even aware of falling asleep. 

John slept almost 12 hours, waking up hungry. He left the med lab and took the elevator up from the steel caverns to the warm wooden world of the mansion. It was 6 a.m. and the teachers and students would only just be waking up. He headed for the kitchen where he surprised head chef, Margit in the midst of supervising her staff as they prepared breakfast for the expanded student body. 

“John Allerdyce! They told me you were back.” Margit was as unsentimental as they came. Her curt nod indicating he could enter her domain was like a hug from anyone else. 

John walked in cautiously, jumping out of the way as a lanky young kitchen worker trundled by with a big bag of flour. “I hate to think what else they said about me,” he told Margit. 

She made a dismissive noise. “You don’t listen to a word of it. You’re home and that’s what’s important!” She fixed him a plate of eggs with tofu cubes, emmenthal cheese and diced tomatoes, along with a fresh-baked multi-grain roll. He slipped upstairs with the food, disappearing into the empty library just as early risers began moving through the halls. 

He ate in the bay window, looking out on the drizzly December morning. The soldiers were in plastic ponchos, hunched down and miserable. _Well,_ he thought. _I might be a prisoner, but at least I’m warm and well-fed._ He began walking along the familiar shelves, looking at books read and unread. On impulse, he pulled down Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” and spent the morning reading through the bloody chronicle of revenge. 

He considered skipping lunch, but his stomach was rumbling. And furthermore, he knew he couldn’t avoid facing the indigenous population forever. He walked into the cafeteria with his head held high, though trying not to look too cocky; his old bag of tricks wasn’t going to work this time. He knew his appearance would arouse curiosity, but he was taken aback by the air of doubt and hostility. By now, everyone knew of his return, and they’d obviously spent the last 24 hours debating his worth. He wanted to run back upstairs and hide, but he knew that only by being with the students and teachers would he be able to convince them he meant no harm, that he should be allowed to remain. 

He got his food and sat down with Kitty, Terry, and Doug, who all smiled and welcomed him, but even from these friends, the reception was a little frosty. 

He asked them, “Who’s the chick with the lizard skin staring daggers at me?” 

Terri answered. “Calls herself Skelimorph. Her brother died during the battle at Alcatraz.” 

“And that’s supposed to be my fault?” he asked, already losing his cool. “Most of the people who died were turned into confetti by Jean.” He looked at his friends for sympathy. “Come on, guys, you’re making me feel like a zit on prom night. What’s going on?” 

Kitty took a deep breath. “Look, John, we want to believe you’re back here for the right reasons, and everything’s going to be the way it was, but…” she paused, staring at him, her brows knitting busily. 

Terri picked up the thread. “But a lot has happened, okay? Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers are dead. The Professor isn’t — you know — himself. It just makes us kind of nervous.” 

John nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.” He looked at Doug for support, but Doug just blushed and began shoveling food into his mouth with discomfited haste. John rolled his eyes. Kitty was still staring at him. “Pryde, is there something else you want to say?” 

She looked annoyed, as if he were forcing her to be rude. “Okay. On Alcatraz, we were all about to escape when Bobby has a shit-fit and goes tearing off into Jean’s TK storm. He was going after _you_.” 

John had never heard all the details of that day. Remembering the chaos on the island, he felt himself growing scared for Bobby, as if he didn’t know the end of the story. “Yeah…?” he prompted. 

“We don’t see or hear from him for like 10 days. We don’t know if he’s alive or dead. And when we do find him, he’s in a coma.” She paused before delivering the death blow. “And you’re fine.” 

John stared at them. “So, what are you saying? You think _I_ did that to Bobby? You think I would _hurt_ him?!” 

Doug’s voice cracked a bit as he said, “John, we’ve seen video footage of the battle. You were fire-blasting Bobby full force, like you wanted to kill him.” 

“And he was blasting back!” John jumped to his feet, tripping on his chair and staggering a minute before righting himself. He looked all around at the faces in the room, and all he could see was hate. He wanted to scream, to cry, to torch the room. They didn’t understand, could never know what he had been through! There were people in America who wanted to imprison or kill every mutant in this room. Only John knew what that would look like! He alone had the memory of the mutant concentration camps. 

And these idiot, sheltered _children_ thought they had the right to judge him! Fear rose in him. Would they actually let him go if he wanted to? Or would they lynch him right here in the cafeteria? He turned for help to the teacher’s table, but Storm and Beast were deep in conversation, ignorant of his imminent demise. He began making his way to the door, looking from face to face for a shred of sympathy or understanding. He was breathing hard, fighting the overpowering desire to light up a flame ball, when suddenly there was a voice at the door. 

“Hi, everybody,” the voice said, and John looked up to see Bobby entering, a bit pale, but smiling that winning Drake smile. “Hey, Cora, Darren!” he called to a couple of students. One girl of maybe 12 ran up to hug him and Bobby tousled her hair. Then he spotted John standing in the middle of the room and moved quickly to his side, not comprehending the gravity of the situation, the thunderhead of judgment that was gathering around him. 

“It’s really great to be back,” he told the assembled student body in a strong voice, oblivious, putting an arm around John’s shoulders. “Listen, some of the new students don’t know this joker here. This is John Allerdyce; he used to be a ‘gifted youngster,’ too. If it wasn’t for him… I’d be dead now.” Bobby grinned at him, and John felt like he was being buffeted by waves, one minute drowning, the next tossed whole on the sand. Bobby blushed all of a sudden, and then continued, his voice still loud and clear, but shaking a bit. “Uh, I should also say that he’s, um, he’s my boyfriend.” 

John turned to him and stared, dumbfounded, but in that moment, Bobby’s face descended on his and John found himself sucked into a kiss of monumental political and personal significance. 

The room became a bee’s nest of shocked buzzing, before a second unexpected voice rang out. 

“Shit, you guys!” it called. “Way to steal my thunder!” 

Bobby and John broke from their kiss and turned, along with everyone in the room, to see Jubilation Lee standing there, hands on her hips. 

 

*** 

 

Jubilee sat very still and listened while Storm raged. She didn’t roll her eyes or try to interrupt or toss down her chair and march out in a huff as she might have in the past. She just listened. 

“You stowed away on the Blackbird. Not only that, you brought an outsider onto the jet. What if you had still been on board when it was destroyed? What if we had been shot out of the sky?” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Goddess, what if Warren had been _killed_? His father would have sued the mansion out from under us!” She resumed her tirade. “Then there are all of the assignments you missed at school!” 

Jubilee was a bit startled as Storm switched hats from leader of the X-Men to Headmistress. She suddenly had a picture of how much was on the woman’s plate following the deaths of Cyclops and the Professor. Well, Xavier’s death had been downgraded to “illness,” but still… 

Storm caught her breath for a second, and Jubilee took the occasion to speak up. “I know, and I plan to make everything right.” 

“But where _were_ you? What did you think you were doing?” 

This was the hardest part of the interview, but Jubilee knew she just had to stay firm. “I can’t tell you.” 

“Now listen, young lady, you are my responsibility; you are my student. You can’t just assign yourself missions and wander off —” 

Jubilee interrupted. “I know. And it won’t happen again.” Her back was aching from sitting up straight like a good girl. She let herself slump into a more accustomed posture. “You know that usually I’m ready to do anything you say. You’re my boss, and that’s fine. But just this one time, I needed to take care of some personal business. Once and for all.” 

“But how can I trust you in the field? How can I trust you to train new team members?” 

“Because you can. You know that.” Storm was finally really looking at her, not just bawling out a rule-breaking kid. Jubilee decided to up the ante. “Look, I saw some of the video footage from Alcatraz. My new X-Men weren’t exactly _bad,_ but they need some whipping into shape. And we have to reintegrate John into the team.” 

“John Allerdyce is not an X-Man.” 

“But he’s back now!” 

“And leaving soon. I’m not opening any positions for members of Magneto’s Brotherhood.” 

Jubilee was about to argue, but she could tell from the set of Storm’s lips that pressing the point would only hurt her cause. She would have to be patient. She sat silently while Storm drummed her nails on Scott’s old desk. 

“We’re in a difficult situation,” Storm told her at last, and Jubilee could feel the shift, that she was being taken back into the inner circle. “Hank has been negotiating with the government, and it looks like we’ll be able to continue as a school, and probably as team. But we’ll need approval for any missions.” 

Jubilee was outraged. “But what if it’s an emergency? ‘Excuse me, Uncle Sam, they’re killing some mutants in Texas; may we go and help? Pretty please?’” 

Storm nodded coldly. “Yes, and they’ll promise to get back to us in three days. Furthermore, we’ll probably be sent on special missions by the government. I don’t know if we’ll be able to refuse.” 

Jubilee blinked and fell silent. She looked around the room. Ororo had brought in a dozen of her plants, but the office was still largely Scott’s. His meticulous bookshelves were still filled with his books. On top of one sat his baseball glove. But the desk that he had always kept so spotless was a tangled mess of Storm’s unprocessed papers. “Things sure have changed,” Jubilee murmured. 

Storm managed a half smile. “They sure have, girl.” 

John, Peter and Kitty were waiting for her in the library, John and Peter reading, Kitty apparently practicing knots with a length of rope. “That’ll come in handy if we have to become pirates,” Jubilee said as she entered and flopped down on a couch. 

“How did it go?” Peter asked. 

“We’re golden. Practice resumes tomorrow at 7 a.m. Don’t be late.” 

Kitty tucked her rope in her pocket and came to sit by Jubilee on the couch. “Really? She’s not suspending you or anything? Wow, you may be the only person who can charm Ms. Monroe.” 

“What can I say? She needs me.” She sat up. “And so do you, you knuckleheads. I’ve been watching video of the Alcatraz mission. Peter, you seem to have a knack for putting yourself in the worst strategic positions. Kitty, some guy was firing particle weapons, and you totally forgot that you can disable electronics by phasing through them.” Kitty and Peter looked abashed. “And Allerdyce…” 

John looked up from his book. “Speakest thou to me, o strident bawd?” 

“Since when did you forget everything we practiced? Turning your flame up to 10 isn’t the only maneuver you know! Or was that just a lovers’ quarrel?” 

John smirked and put his head back in his book, saying, “Methinks the lady hath her period.” 

Jubilee flipped him the bird and asked, “Where is Bobby anyway?” 

John sighed and closed the book, sitting up. “I sent him back to his room to lie down. He’s still kind of groggy.” 

“He gonna be okay?” 

“Yes,” John replied with a tone that said, _stop asking._

Kitty turned to her. “So, fearless leader, maybe it’s time you told us how you spent your vacation. Did it have anything to do with the return of one Cassius Kwan?” 

Jubilee kept herself calm, made her face betray nothing. “No comment,” she said. “And Sam! Is he part of the team now? He’s walking around with some fancy X pin.” 

Peter nodded. “Just turned 18, eager as hell. If I tell him practice is at seven, he’ll be there at six.” 

“How are the two hotheads going to get along?” Kitty asked, indicating John. She had begun tying her knots again, this time practicing the slippage of a hitch on her wrist. “Sam and John are liable to turn on each other during a mission.” 

Jubilee answered, “Well, for now Storm’s not letting Magneto’s number two go on any missions.” 

John’s face turned to stone. He stood up, tucking his book under his arm. “Well then, I’ll just fuck right off.” He started for the door. 

“I’ll fix it, John.” Jubilee said. “Wait for me; I want to walk with you. Tomorrow morning, everyone.” 

She and John walked in silence, and by some unspoken agreement, headed for Jubilee’s room. 

She took her black fedora with the yellow band off a hook on the wall and dusted it with care. “I don’t know… I half expected my stuff to be gone when I got back.” 

“Come on,” John laughed. “None of the Girl Scouts around here would have touched it.” 

“No, I mean… It’s dumb. It’s like I was prepared to lose my place here to do what I had to do.” 

“Which was…?” he prompted. 

She wanted to tell him. It was a pretty great story, full of detective work, action, near fatal encounters, and eventual triumph. But something was stopping her. Telling it would reduce it to some thrill ride. She knew she would have to process all the things she did — and some of them didn’t sit right with her own morals — in the months to come. Besides, John was on her team, and she was his leader. It wasn’t his job to listen to her troubles. 

So she ignored the question and sat down beside him. “So, you and Bobby going to make it work this time?” 

John gave a shuddery sigh. “I sure as fuck hope so. He’s changed. We both have.” 

“Think Rogue’s going to come back?” 

“God, that’s a fucking depressing question. But he told the whole school about us! Remember how scared he was to come out before? It’s got to count for something.” 

“John, what really happened to the two of you in San Francisco?” 

“You don’t want to know, trust me.” 

“You’re wrong; I do. It’s not going to help, keeping it locked up inside you!” 

His eyes grew hard. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me? You just trying to get caught up on all the gossip? Or maybe you’re making sure we’re not a danger to _your_ team.” He stood and walked to the door, stiff as a soldier. “This story’s not yours, Jubilee. It’s mine. Mine and Bobby’s. We’ll work it out for ourselves. Got it?” 

She knew she didn’t have the right to be, but she was royally pissed. “Fine, wallow in your own shit. You’re so fucking stubborn!” 

“Says the Queen of Stubborn Island,” he snapped. The slam of the door reverberated in her head like a bell tolling, “fail, fail, fail.” She lay down on her bed and didn’t move until the details of the room vanished in the gathering darkness. She sat up and dug in the side pocket of her cargo pants for her phone. 

He answered on the second ring. “Hello? Jubilee is that you?” 

“Hey, Mike,” she said and found herself grinning, imagining Mike Haddad’s eyes, his pierced eyebrow, his warm olive skin. “Just thought I’d give you a call. Guess you heard I was, uh, missing.” 

“No, no I didn’t. I’ve been busy. Kind of out of touch with the mansion. Missing? Is everything okay?” 

She laughed, and she wondered if it sounded as false to him as it did to her. “You know me! I always come out on top. Yeah, Mike… To be honest, it was actually pretty serious. It was about my parents’ murder. I thought maybe… I could talk to you about it?” Her chest felt all spongy, her head full of acid cotton. Was there anyone else other than Mike she could trust to hear her talk like this? So full of doubt and need? 

But he said, “Oh. Look, Jubes, maybe another time, but I’m just waiting for my… for a friend here. Sorry. I’m moving to California in two days. I’m going to be an intern at the mutant center in Berkeley!” 

Jubilee felt her throat closing up, but she forced the words out. “Oh wow, that’s great! I was just in L.A.” 

“Oh yeah? Anyway, there’s so much to do, and Twitch and I don’t have much time together before —” 

“Oh, that’s okay! I totally understand. Call me when you’re settled in Berkeley.” She was suddenly desperate to hang up. 

“Are you really okay? You sound kind of… We could talk until she gets here.” 

“No, I’m fine! You know me, I just wanted to show off as usual. Hey, bon voyage, guy!” 

She hung up, breathing hard. The tears squeezed out of her almost painfully. She threw the phone to the floor and it bounced and rolled across the carpet as she curled up on the bed, weeping, thinking about the future. Storm, Xavier, even Scott in his way. They were loners. What was the price of being a leader? Doomed to always be alone? 

 

*** 

 

Bobby awoke as the door opened. “Johnny? Is that you?” 

“Shit, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’ll leave.” 

“No, come here, lie down with me. Ugh, I had this horrible dream.” 

“What was it about?” 

“I’m not sure. I was in this box. They were poking at me with sticks. Maybe it was a cage. And I needed to get out, but I knew — okay, this is weird — I knew I wasn’t real. And I had to get out of the cage or I’d be, uh, not real forever, right? It was so fucking scary.” 

“How you feeling now?” 

“Like this.” 

“Oh. Nice. Heh. But we better not. You need to rest.” 

“No, I need this. I need it now. Here.” 

“Bobby, I want to so much, but… you’re really tight, man.” 

“I don’t care! Do it. Do it hard. Please, Johnny! Maybe I haven’t woken up, ’cause I still feel like I don’t exist! Like there’s no substance, like I’m going to float away. Hold me down. Go as deep as you can. I don’t care if it hurts! Please, make me real again…” 

 

*** 

 

It was two more days before Bobby finally found the nerve to go upstairs and see them. John accompanied him as far as the door, but at the last minute refused to go in. Bobby knocked twice, and then turned the handle and entered. Xavier’s suite had been transformed into a hospital ward for the two men. Ms. Frost had said she wanted them kept separate from any other patients — meaning him and John. Bobby knew it was also about secrecy. Magneto was a fugitive, and Charles Xavier was officially dead. 

The overhead lights were off, the curtains drawn, and the dark room was broken into islands of light where the lamps were turned on. Ms. Frost was standing beside the Professor’s bed and checking his IV. He appeared to be unconscious. Bobby was still surprised every time he saw the man’s new body. 

Her voice sounded loud in the stillness. “Good morning, Mr. Drake. You’re sure you’re ready for this?” 

Bobby wasn’t sure, but he knew it was up to him to make the gesture. “If you think it’s safe.” Bobby was suddenly aware of a hissing sound. He looked deeper into the room and saw Magneto, sitting half-slumped in a wheelchair, hooked up to an IV, breathing through a ventilator. 

“Don’t worry. Charles is in a much more stable frame of mind today.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “He’s ready for you. Don’t worry; I’ll be watching.” 

“What should I do?” 

“Touch the horse,” she said, indicating the chestnut brown porcelain statue on the table. Bobby reached out his hand reluctantly and closed his eyes as his hand met the cool, smooth surface. 

… 

 

“Hello, Robert,” the Professor says, and he looks again like he has in all the years Bobby has known him, sitting in his familiar, high-tech wheelchair. They are still in the front room of his suite, but the curtains are drawn and dust motes dance in the sunlight. Bobby looks around for Magneto and sees him sitting by the window, staring out. He is no longer in a wheelchair, not hooked up to machines, looking as potent and intimidating as he had in the past. Emma Frost is nowhere to be seen, but Bobby knows she is around. 

“I don’t think Erik will join us today,” Xavier says. “Please, sit down.” 

Bobby sits on one of the antique armchairs. He has a creepy sense of disconnectedness, no matter how genuine the fabric feels. “Is this real?” he asks. 

“As near as possible,” Xavier answers with a smile. “You may, in fact, be sitting on that chair in the real world, but your senses are experiencing only the duplicate chair that I have created in my mind.” 

“Weird,” Bobby says, and decides that it’s easier to just accept the reality at face value. Still, he can’t bring himself to take a biscuit from the tray beside him. 

Xavier leans forward in his wheelchair. “Robert, I asked you here to offer you an apology. I was… not myself in San Francisco. Adjusting to my new body has been a challenge, and I became confused.” 

Bobby nods. “Did it have something to do with Magneto?” 

“I believe so, yes. With my confusion and Erik’s physical distress, I lost perspective on my own reality.” He looks back at Magneto, who is still staring out the window. “We are old friends. It was too easy for me to forget where I ended and he began.” 

What Bobby really wants to ask is if they were boyfriends, but he can’t think of a way to phrase it that doesn’t seem rude. Instead he says, “Yeah, I think I understand what that’s like. Are you two going to stay here? In this, you know, this telepath room?” 

“It is tempting — living in a world of one’s own creation, half nostalgia, half idealization. But Emma has helped me a great deal, and I believe I’m ready to begin rejoining the world.” 

Bobby finds some comfort in that. Even if he looks different, it will bring some normality to the mansion to have the Professor back. “And what about Magneto?” 

“Erik has been severely disabled by the cure sickness. Sadly, his symptoms are at the more critical end of the spectrum.” He grows quiet for a moment and Bobby imagines how hard it would be if John were sick like that. “We will begin his rehabilitation right away, but I think I’ll bring us back here an hour or two a day for some respite. So we can feel… normal.” 

“That sounds like a good idea. And you’re rebuilding Cerebro?” 

“Yes. I’ll need Erik’s help for that. Forge and Emma will be lending us their talents, too. We need Cerebro so we can continue to locate and help mutants.” 

“Rogue’s still missing,” Bobby says, and the Professor nods. 

Just then a crease appears in the air, and when it smoothes out, John is standing beside them. Bobby jumps up. “Hey, I thought you didn’t want to —” 

“Changed my mind. Bobby, you done chatting? ’Cause I want a few words with Charles.” 

Bobby shakes the Professor’s hand, smiling. “It’s glad you’re feeling better, sir. Uh, how do I get out of here?” 

“Just take a deep breath and close your eyes.” 

On impulse, Bobby grabs one of the biscuits before following the instructions. He and the biscuit vanish. 

Xavier indicates the chair Bobby has just vacated. “Won’t you have a seat, John?” 

“No thanks. I don’t want to get the fantasy furniture dirty.” He eyes Xavier carefully, as if he’ll see through the illusion, but the man, the room — it all seems real. As real as the camp did. “I don’t know what I want to say to you. Part of me still wants to tear you apart, to do things to you they did to us in your little hall of horrors.” It feels both good and wrong to speak like this to his old teacher, to make him cringe. 

But Xavier’s voice does not waver as he answers. “If I could undo what was done, I would. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, John. We cannot change the past; we have no choice but to move forward. I think your request of Emma to erase Bobby’s memory was both correct and compassionate. I admire your maturity. It has been hard-won.” 

“Well, don’t take any credit for it. I did it myself.” 

Xavier seems about to speak, but he just sighs. They lapse into uneasy silence. John becomes aware of the ticking clock on the wall, hears the furniture creak in the dry winter air. He wonders if beyond the door of the suite, he would find a simulacrum of the school, or if the mansion would be as it was when Xavier was a boy. John knows how your childhood home can live on in your mind. 

“I read your book,” Xavier suddenly says and John stops himself from asking what he wants to ask. But Xavier knows, and tells him, “I enjoyed it very much. I was pleased that you eschewed cleverness for truth of feeling, and how you opened your heart for your readers.” John finds he is holding his breath. Xavier smiles at him. “I hope you will forgive me saying this, but I was proud of you.” 

John can’t look at him. He has no acceptable outlet for all he is feeling. He looks up at Erik, sitting by the window. “I’m going to talk to him,” he says, and walks deeper into the room. On the table beside Lehnsherr are blueprints labeled “Cerebro II” as well as pages and pages of technical notes in the man’s precise German-schoolboy hand. John has always loved Erik’s handwriting. “Magneto,” he says loudly, and then more gently when the man doesn’t react, “Erik, it’s me, John Allerdyce.” 

Magneto’s voice is surprisingly strong. “I know who you are, Pyro. And if you’re going to treat me like an invalid, you might as well leave.” He continues to stare through the window. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” John sing-songs acidly. “I forgot; you’re always master of your domain. Even if it’s a fake room inside Charlie’s head where you’re not just an old cripple.” 

Surprisingly, Magneto laughs. “You never fail to amuse, young man. That’s what they all think of me, you know. Powerless, old, disabled. But as usual, they underestimate Erik Lehnsherr.” 

John doesn’t know how to react to this. Mostly it seems pathetic, but part of him feels a tiny twist of fear, as if the man were about to rise and tear the mansion apart with a wave of his hand. He comes around behind him and looks out the window. He is not altogether surprised to see the outer fences of the mutant work camp, Wolverine’s skeleton still stretched above the gate. Prisoners, their faces pale and hopeless, stare through the wire fence at them. 

He says to Magneto, “What do you see?” 

“Auschwitz,” the man answers. 

 

*** 

 

Part II: February

“That was bullshit,” Jubilee said angrily as soon as they climbed down from the plane. “We didn’t even know who we were fighting!” The four of them began walking across the echoing hangar, away from the borrowed Worthington Industries jet, toward the change rooms. 

Bobby looked back nervously, hoping Storm and Beast hadn’t heard. But they were still on board the plane, and so was eager-beaver Sam, who had spent the whole flight from Central America rehashing the best, bloodiest moments of the battle. 

“Seriously,” Kitty said as she dug in her uniform for her phone. “Were we even there to protect mutants, or were we just fighting some drug cartel for the DEA?” She pushed buttons on her phone and shouted happily, “Hey, Warren’s going to be here tomorrow!” 

Peter seemed to ignore that piece of information, returning to the subject of the mission. “I guess we just have trust the government to use us for the best purposes.” 

Jubilee guffawed. “Seriously? You trust them?” 

“Do we have a choice?” he answered. 

As they removed and stowed their uniforms in the men’s locker room, Bobby said, “The girls kind of have a point, Peter. Are we going to do just anything we’re asked to? What if we think it’s wrong?” 

“Storm and Beast are trying to win us more autonomy, Bobby. In the meantime, we have to support them and do as we’re told.” 

Bobby was still getting used to everyone knowing he was gay. Even though Peter seemed entirely at ease getting naked in front of him as they headed for the showers, Bobby found himself going to ridiculous lengths to look away from his teammate’s body so he wouldn’t think he was checking him out. In general, everyone seemed fine with his coming out, though some of the girls were put out on Rogue’s behalf. His roommate, Kevin, was a little bit too pleased when asked if he would move out of their room so John could move back in. The 15 year-old flinched away when Bobby tried to touch him in even the most casual way. 

“Closet case,” John had concluded, a bit too easily. He sat on his newly reclaimed bed and watched Bobby folding clothes into his backpack. 

Bobby said, “I’m worried people are going to hassle you while I’m away.” 

“You’re only going to be gone for 24 hours, Bobby! It’s been almost two months. I’m winning everyone over bit by bit.” 

“With your undeniable charm.” 

“Exactly. And, hey, it’s me that should be worried about you. Last time you visited your folks, they called the cops on us.” 

Bobby laughed. “Don’t worry. The X-Men are civil servants now. My parents will be totally happy I found steady work in this economy.” He checked again for his ID before he zipped up the bag and put it by the door. The residents of the mansion were now technically allowed to leave the grounds, but the army sentries at the gate still had the right to detain anyone at their discretion. “Okay, wish me luck and kiss me goodbye.” 

John kissed him deeply and then pushed him away. “Wow! Twenty-four hours without you bugging me to change my shorts, or telling me again how James Cameron is a genius! Paradise!” 

After Bobby left, John headed down to the cafeteria. He spotted Jones showing his classmates a kid’s electronic alphabet game which seemed to be displaying stock market data. John whispered in his ear, and Jones rolled his eyes and said, too loud, “I told you I’d get it and I will!” John said a simple thank you and spent the lunch hour using a book to deflect conversation. 

He sat on his bed after lunch, forcing himself to breathe slowly and evenly, keeping his mind in neutral, though it wanted to fly apart like a frog in a propeller. Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door and Jones entered without being invited in. 

“Guess that means you’re not a vampire, after all,” John said. 

Jones always ignored things he didn’t understand. “Okay, here it is.” He handed John a scratched and banged-up cell phone that was held together with what looked like medical tape. “It’s already programmed in. Speed dial #5.” 

“Was it hard to find her number?” 

Jones just looked annoyed at the question. “Even if the FBI is watching her line — which Doug thinks is likely — they won’t be able to trace the call.” 

“Awesome.” 

Jones suddenly got more animated. “Actually, that phone was once used by the FBI to remotely blow up a van. Cool, huh? I found it on eBay.” 

Soon John was sitting alone again, this time staring at the phone in his hand. What had been meditative calm before was now catatonia. “Fuck,” he muttered and pushed the speed dial. 

“Hello?” 

Her voice was too real to be just a voice. It was like a slab of raw meat had jumped out of the earpiece and slapped him in the face. It sounded strange, foreign, like a trick. At the same time, it was as familiar as breathing. 

“Hello?” she said again, and he could hear her breathing. She knew it wasn’t just a wrong number — he could tell. She had been waiting for this moment. For how long? Years? “Johnny, is that you?” 

And still he couldn’t speak. He didn’t even have unspoken words trapped behind an unwilling tongue. He was just empty. 

“Please, Johnny, say something.” 

“Hey, Mom,” he managed in a breathless rasp. Then he cleared his throat loudly and spoke as if his heart weren’t pounding, “How’s it going, Sally?” 

She was already crying. Shit. Couldn’t she have waited until he actually _said_ something? Did his very existence have to break her heart? 

“Oh, Johnny. I’m so glad to hear your voice. You don’t know what it’s been like! I see you on the news. They say terrible things about you.” 

“Yup, mom. I’m the mutant terrorist you’ve heard so much about. Maybe you’d be better off pretending I’m dead.” 

“Don’t say that! You’re my son, Johnny, I worry about you! How could I not? I pray for your safety every day, Jelly Bean.” And that wasn’t fair, using childhood nicknames on him. Not fair at all. 

“Well, just don’t tell anyone you talked to me, or you’ll have to pray for your Jelly Bean from jail.” She cried quietly and he gritted his teeth. What an idiot he was. What a mistake! He thought about just hanging up. Push one button, and all this misery just vanishes! But he couldn’t do it. She would have to hang up first. “Look, Sally, don’t you have to get going? If you don’t make his lunch on time, he might show you the back of his hand.” 

“What? Oh, Johnny, you don’t think I’m still with Richard, do you?” 

And that stopped him cold. _Richard._ He had forgotten the monster even had a real name. Of _course_ she was still with him! In John’s mind, they were eternally frozen in their little melodrama of hate and violence, in that cramped apartment — forever and ever. Otherwise, what was he running away from? “Cut the crap, Sally! You didn’t leave him. You aren’t strong enough.” 

“Yes, John, I threw him out!” And in that second, as she spoke without apology, he remembered his mother from the days when they were alone, how strong she could be, even thrillingly angry. All these years, he had only remembered the scared woman cowering in the shadow of the abuser. 

“When?” he said, his voice full of stones. 

“As soon as you ran away. He made my son leave me!” 

John wanted to scream. “That’s a touching story, Sally, but what about all those years when he was beating the crap out of your son while you peeled potatoes in the next room?!” 

There was silence from the other end of the phone, and John suddenly panicked, thinking he had made her hang up after all. He said in a small voice, “Mom? You there?” 

“John, there’s nothing I can say that can make up for what I did to you. Believe me, if I could have stopped him, I would have. I-I just hope you understand how confused I was in those years.” 

Again, his anger flared. Her excuse sounded maddeningly like Xavier’s. _I was confused, I didn’t realize what I was doing. I was too in love with some man to realize what was happening to you._

“Whatever,” he said, fighting back tears. “Hey, swell to hear your voice. Leave your number with my press agent and she’ll send out an autographed glossy. I gotta go.” 

“Please, Johnny! When can I talk to you again?!” 

_Never!_ he thought. _When I’ve turned to ice like Bobby does! When it doesn’t hurt this much._

His voice shook a bit as he asked, “Are you still at the same place? At our apartment?” 

“No. I think they tore the house down.” 

“Give me your number,” he said. 

“But you called me. Don’t you have —” 

“Just… give it to me.” She dictated a phone number and he wrote it in his notebook, right under an epigram he’d composed for his new novel: _The brightest lamp cannot illuminate your way if your eyes are closed._

Speaking was hard, like lifting boulders. “I’ll call you, okay Mom? Give me… give me two months.” 

“Do you promise?” 

“Yeah, for what that’s worth.” 

“I believe you, Johnny,” she said. “I believe in you.” 

 

*** 

 

The man was making them wait, like he was the President, or Jack Nicholson or something. 

“I’ll see where he is,” Kitty said and slipped from the music room, closing the door behind her. 

Peter waited for her to leave before he stood up and said with a definitive air, “I don’t have to time for this; I have tests to grade. And I don’t trust Warren. Sorry, but he seems to think that he can rewrite the rules around here just because he’s giving us a lot of money and equipment.” 

Without looking up from his book, John said, “That’s how it usually works, Pete.” 

Jubilee wasn’t sure why Worthington had asked them to meet today, but she was definitely curious about it. “Please, Peter,” she said. “Let’s hear what he has to say.” Peter sat back down. He pulled out a stack of junior physics tests and resumed his grading. 

Jubilee felt nervous, excited, ready for something to come along and kick over the fucked-up status quo of the school and the X-Men. Sure, she had promised Storm she’d toe the line, but the line kept moving, and its position wasn’t under Storm’s control. She looked at John, lying on his stomach on the couch, reading a slim, well-worn hardcover. “What’s got you so engrossed, Allerdyce?” 

John held up the book. “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 

“I don’t get this new obsession. You used to hate Shakespeare.” 

“I’ve forgiven him for what he did to me in the past.” He opened the book again and buried his nose in it. “But I wish he would give up on the puns. He’s worse than an eight year old with a riddle book.” 

The door opened and Bobby appeared. “Knock, knock,” he said, looking around. “I got a text from Kitty that we were meeting here.” 

From the door, Bobby couldn’t see John, and he looked kind of spooked when his boyfriend leaped up and over the back of the couch to sweep him up in a hug. 

“Wow,” Bobby grinned over John’s shoulder. “That’s how everyone should be greeted when they enter a room.” 

Jubilee watched with suspicion at the uncharacteristic display of affection. But no, there didn’t seem to be any sarcastic zinger waiting at the end. 

“You okay?” John asked, running affectionate fingers through Bobby’s hair. “Your family didn’t grind you into Bobby bits?” 

“No, they were okay. We talked a lot, but we didn’t say much, you know?” 

“I’m glad you’re back.” John kissed him and Jubilee saw that Bobby was just as surprised as she was. Something was up with John and not knowing what it was made her itchy. 

“Damn it!” Peter snapped. 

Was everyone weird today? It wasn’t like the man to swear. “What’s wrong?” Jubilee asked. 

“Pen’s dead,” he muttered, shaking it like he was throttling a chicken. 

She got up with a grunt. “Okay, don’t pop a rivet, I’ll check Pryde’s bag. She’s usually good for supplies.” 

Kitty had lately taken to carrying a big red leather carry-all. It was sitting on the floor by her chair, and Jubilee began digging. “Here’s all her rope. That’s a weirder obsession than Shakespeare.” She resumed her search. “Okay, what?” She held up a pack of clothespins for John to see. 

John jumped off the couch and hurried over. “Oh, this is getting good; keep going.” 

Jubilee looked around the room. Bobby’s eyes were saying, “Huh? What?” 

Peter gave her his preacher’s-son face and said, “Put Kitty’s bag down, Jubilee. I don’t need the pen.” 

But it was too late, because her hand had been digging of its own accord, and it suddenly found something that felt very strange indeed. She gave a quick glance toward the door, and she must have been a good team leader, because Bobby closed it immediately. She lifted out the object. The shiny black dildo she could identify, but the rest of the gear…? 

John screamed and hugged himself. “Fuckwow! It’s a strap-on! Oh my god, Worthington and Pryde are playing Bend Over Billionaire. And here I thought Hippolyta and the donkey was kinky!” 

Peter stood up, stammering in his fury. “Jubilee! You have no right to-to invade her privacy like that!” 

Jubilee gathered up the kinky paraphernalia and tucked it back in. It was like when she was 13 and had to return her aunt’s overstocked medicine cabinet to normal after raiding it. “Relax, Pete, it was all an accident. She’ll never know.” 

Peter shook his head, blushing hotly, gathering up his papers. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. Tell Warren I’m sorry, but —” 

The door swung open again and Kitty came in, smiling broadly, with Warren following her. He was wearing a beautifully-tailored suit in hunter green, no tie, his shirt open at the neck. The suit was fashioned to let his wings free in the back. “Hi, I’m glad you were all able to make it. Please sit down. I won’t take up too much of your time.” 

Jubilee watched Peter mulling this over before resuming his seat in the easy chair. John and Bobby went to sit on one couch, John sliding under Bobby’s arm, while Kitty joined Jubilee on the other couch with an expectant grin on her face. 

Warren stood before them, looking calm and confident. “I have a proposal to make to the five of you. Please hear me out, and then you can ask any questions you might have. The recent disastrous roll-out of the cure was an object lesson in how the future of mutant relations might look in this country. It’s not that the cure was wrong in and of itself — whether we in this room like it or not, there might be some mutants who would seek such a course.” 

“That would be good for your personal fortune,” John said. 

Kitty shot him an angry look. “Can we hear Warren out, please?” 

But Warren didn’t look offended. “That’s true, John. I see you’re reading Midsummer Night’s Dream. Well, this ‘wing’d cupid’ isn’t ‘painted blind.’ As I was saying, the problem is not with new technology _per se_. The problem is that America can’t decide if mutants are fellow citizens or enemy invaders. The X-Men were poised to become our best defenders against outlaw threats, as well as those posed by our own government and military. Now, for all intents and purposes, the X-Men are done.” 

Although they had all been saying virtually the same thing for a month, hearing an outsider say it got Jubilee’s hackles up. “We’re still here, Worthington. We’re still fighting.” 

“But only when the fight is approved by forces beyond your control. Face it, you’re no more than field operatives now. Of the Army? The CIA? Do you even know for sure?” 

Jubilee and the others shared looks. Only Peter remained stony faced, staring coldly at Warren. 

“John was the first among you to see some disturbing documents: anti-mutant research briefs. Weapons, biochemicals, detention centers… I can tell you that bidding on those contracts has already begun. Mutant Containment is the hot new buzzword in the defense industry. I’m ashamed to say that my father’s company is trying to get a piece of the action.” 

Peter said, “Can you blame the government for wanting defensive weapons capable of stopping a Magneto? But there are laws on the books to protect law-abiding mutants from excesses.” 

Kitty responded, sharp as a machete, “Where were those laws when mutants were being held without due process last summer? Who gets to define who is a good mutant and who’s a bad one?” Her voice was rising. “The cure was being secretly weaponized from day one, Peter. Dr. McCoy was Secretary of Mutant Affairs, and they even kept him in the dark!” 

“Are they building Sentinels?” John asked quietly, and Jubilee heard the note of worry in his voice. Almost like he’d met Sentinels himself. 

Warren paused — and it might have just been calculated dramatic effect, but it worked. “They’re beginning the R &D process. Secret labs across the country, some overseas. The nerve center is in the Los Angeles area.” 

This silenced them. Jubilee found herself already inventing strategies for fighting giant laser-equipped robots. She could already see how she would deploy the team. “And what are we going to do about it?” she asked. 

“I need a secret team of mutant operatives working on the West Coast. The X-Men just don’t have the autonomy for this kind of mission anymore. I want you five to join me.” 

Jubilee felt something joyous rise in her. She had been expecting some offer of employment — maybe as fancy bodyguards — but the idea of fighting against the bastards who wanted to crush them? She liked that a lot. 

Warren continued. “I know this isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. Let me tell you a bit more. We wouldn’t be seeing action for at least four months. At this stage, I’m better off with my intelligence team doing the research. But I want you in L.A. within six weeks, training. I will pay for apartments, give you a fair salary and benefits. If any of you are thinking of going to college, my company can help subsidize your studies.” 

Without hesitation, John said, “I’m in.” 

Bobby turned to him in shock. “Wait a sec, John, let’s think about this! We can’t just walk out on Storm and Beast now. Or the Professor!” 

John crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, Bobby, you might have a future here, but Storm’s been anxious to get rid of me since I got back. And even if I could stay, I’m a fucking prisoner! I can’t even go out in the grounds or show my face at the window in case there’s some surveillance camera watching! I want a chance to have a life, do something useful.” 

Peter stood up. “No, Bobby’s right. We owe this place too much to walk out just when things are tough. This is more than just our school. They taught us to use our powers, to be proud of who we are.” 

Kitty was angry. “That’s what schools _do_ , Peter! And then you graduate and leave. And we’ve already given back. I’ve taught here, I’ve fought with the X-Men. We all deferred going to college so we could fight Magneto! Is it wrong if we want to grow up?” 

Peter looked pained. “Do what you have to do. I have my own ideas of loyalty, and I can’t be part of this.” He turned and walked out, the door clicking behind him with a wrenching finality. They all looked at each other. 

Warren said, “What about you, Jubilee? I’m planning to make you team leader. I set our agenda and choose our missions, but out in the field, we all follow your lead.” 

She kept her cool, even though she wanted to jump up and cheer. But she could see Worthington already knew her answer “What the fuck, let’s do it.” 

“Bobby?” Warren said. “I saw what you could do on Alcatraz. I could really use your talents.” 

“He’s in,” John said. 

Bobby pulled away from him. “Don’t answer for me!” John gave him a look, and Bobby stammered, “But yeah, I’m in.” He smiled shyly. 

Kitty jumped up and gave her own personal angel a hug and kiss. Jubilee had a sudden, and unwelcome image in her head of Kitty in her X-Men uniform, wearing the strap-on. Warren grinned at them all and his wings rippled. For the first time in the meeting, it felt like he was letting his true personality shine through. “This is excellent! You guys won’t regret it! I’ll have the contracts ready for you in the morning. By the way, we’ll be calling our group The Champions!” 

“The Champions, huh? Not ‘Bottom’s Dream’?” John smirked, and Bobby had a coughing fit. 

 

*** 

 

Part III: March

“No, it’s clear from these papers that we haven’t taught wave/particle duality as well as we might have,” Xavier said, and Peter made a note in his book. “Is it just me, or do you find it cold in here?” 

“Should I turn on the space heater, Charles?” Peter asked, beginning to stand. 

“No, no, I’ll put on my cardigan.” 

Xavier looked at the big man, almost saying, _Go out West with your friends. You don’t have to be my nursemaid. There are so many frontiers for you to explore!_ But truth be told, he was grateful for Peter’s decision. Lord knew they needed him, both at the school and on the team. “Anyway, if you could do a review of the subject on Tuesday, I would be grateful.” He looked out the window at the threatening skies. Would it snow again? “Emma still hasn’t decided whether to stay and join us. If she does, we’ll be absorbing the students from her academy.” 

“Adding ten more psionics to the student body will be… interesting,” Peter said diplomatically. 

Xavier smiled. “It will certainly keep us on our toes. Whether she stays or not, with the new team members we’ve already recruited, the X-Men will be a most effective unit. I think you’ll find it a stimulating mix of personalities.” 

Both men returned to their grading. Xavier felt much more stable than he had three months earlier when he’d first occupied this body. His control over his telepathy had grown sufficiently that he could let part of himself “wander” in the way he used to, keeping half an ethereal eye on the comings and goings of his beloved children. He felt something happening out front and, with a pang, rose and walked to the window. 

“They’re leaving, Peter. Did you say goodbye? You can go out if you want.” 

“No, I talked to them at lunch. I…” he was at a loss for words, and Xavier could feel the ache that filled his big chest. “I don’t really like all those goodbyes. Reminds me of a deathbed scene.” 

Xavier chuckled, and then sighed. “It will be strange without them. But that’s a teacher’s life, isn’t it? Forever saying goodbye and good luck.” He felt another familiar presence outside his door. He could sense that she was hesitant to knock, unsure how’d she react to him in his new body. “Peter, if you wouldn’t mind. Open the door for my guest and leave us for a few minutes.” 

Peter opened the door and greeted Andi Murakami who stepped in nervously as he left. She looked around the room as if it, too might have changed along with Charles’ body. 

“Hello, Andi,” he said heartily. “Won’t you please have a seat? He indicated a pair of chairs by the boarded-up fire place, and she took one, almost tripping on the carpet in her nervousness. He rose from his desk and her eyes went wide to see him walking. Feeling puckish, he did a little soft-shoe for her before sitting down in the other chair. He said, “It’s wonderful to see you.” 

“And you, Charles. I mean… It’s truly amazing.” 

“And you don’t quite believe it. Don’t worry, I’ve grown used to that reaction.” 

Her hands fiddled with the upholstery piping. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you!” 

He smiled and put a hand on hers, as he used to. “Don’t let this young body fool you; I’m still a tough old bird.” He could feel something shift in her mood, as she came to accept he was who he said. _Good._ The more closed-minded never quite got there. “I apologize for the clandestine nature of this meeting. But you must understand, I was legally declared dead, my body verified by authorities and planted in the earth. Now, I can be Charles Xavier only to my friends.” 

“That must be awful! You were such a respected man!” 

“Actually, it’s rather liberating. A chance to begin again without so much of the old baggage. And believe me, much nicer things are said about me now than when I was alive!” They laughed together at that. “I understand you’ll be defending your thesis soon.” 

“Yes, it’s finally scheduled for next month. After your… death, they had a lot of trouble finding a defense committee. But Charles! The most remarkable things are happening. Johns Hopkins has offered me a position. Can you believe that? Before I even graduate!” 

“My dear, you are in the right place at the right time. I know Michael Terriedale in the Medical School. He’s been most anxious for his school to become the leading center in the study of mutant physiology.” 

“And psychology! Bizarre as it sounds, I’m a leader in that field. I got there before anyone else, thanks to you.” 

“What did I tell you — was it three years ago? If you acted quickly, you could make a name for yourself.” 

“You did. You were most persuasive, too. Sometimes I felt like I was being taken by a very experienced con artist.” 

He put a hand to his chest in mock offense. “My dear!” 

“Well, it certainly hasn’t been boring.” He saw her eyes grow moist. From her mind floated images of Jean, Scott, and himself before his death. He took her hand again and gave it a fond squeeze. She smiled and said, “Thank you.” 

He took back his hand, straightened his cardigan and said, “Yes, well, I think I should take a little time and make sure you’re ready for that defense!” 

 

*** 

 

John tossed his suitcase into the back of the Beemer SUV and leaned against the vehicle, watching Bobby coming and going through the front door of the mansion with bag after bag, plus a bunch of taped-up boxes full of his junk. The driver Warren had sent was starting to look worried, and John watched him silently sizing up the growing pile against the available space. 

“Jesus Christ, Drake,” Jubilee said passing him on the steps. “Even my three suitcases made me feel too girly. What is all this crap?” 

“I’ve been here longer than you!” Bobby objected. He looked down at the pile, paused and then ran back inside in a panic. 

Jubilee came to stand by John. “He’s probably packing his bed.” 

“Sentimental value,” John explained. He looked up at the old building, sitting solid and silent in the damp late-winter air, and thought about the value of sentiment. The snow was gone, leaving the grounds muddy and brown. Faces kept appearing and disappearing at classroom windows, watching three members of their community get ready to depart. Some were envious, but he knew some saw it as another betrayal, this time by Bobby and Kitty, fixtures from the day the school opened. _Get over it, people,_ he wanted to shout. _Nothing lasts forever._

But he knew he wasn’t immune to sentiment. He had to admit it: no matter the pain he had felt here, no matter the circumstances of his leaving, the house that Xavier built had been his first and truest refuge. It was the place where he could be a mutant, be a writer, find out how to really love. On the whole, he would miss the old pile of bricks. 

Jubilee was shifting from foot to foot, drumming on the door of the car. She checked the time on her phone. “Can we get going already? I feel like a circus freak standing here.” 

“Take in the atmosphere, sister; even if you do come back here, it’ll never be the same.” 

“Shut up, okay? My mascara’s gonna run.” He saw she was doing the same as him — toughing over her feelings. 

Kitty and Doug came outside to stand beside them. 

“I’ll see you guys in two weeks after I get my parents sorted out,” she said. “They want me to get my own apartment in LA. They don’t think I should move in with Warren. ‘It’s too early in the relationship, he’s your boss, yadda yadda.’” 

John said, “Don’t get yourself tied up in knots about it,” and Jubilee kicked his shoe. He put a hand on Doug’s shoulder. “So, kid, it was nice of you to see us off. Don’t worry; the Titanic is the safest ship on the sea.” 

Doug smirked — a smirk John recognized from the mirror. “I wasn’t doing anything special, anyways,” the boy said. 

“Where’s Jones?” 

“I’m here,” responded a tinny voice. “Hold me up, Doug.” 

Doug held up his cell phone and Jones’ face beamed owlishly from the screen. 

Kitty said, “You guys come out and visit us, okay?” 

Jones snorted. “We’re already out there. We’re Worthington’s intelligence department.” 

“That’s a secret, you jerk!” Doug shouted. He snapped the phone closed and pocketed it. “He confuses being a spy with being an attention-whore. It’s a problem.” 

Another car pulled into the driveway and Kitty rolled her eyes. “Shit, my parents are already here.” She ran off to greet them. 

Jubilee kicked the gravel. “But why are we still here?! Bobby!” she screamed towards the mansion, and at that moment he emerged, carrying his snowboard plus a set of skis and poles. The driver paled a bit and dug in the car for some rope to tie the equipment to the roof rack. 

When he and Bobby were done stowing the gear, the driver said, “If that’s everything, I’d like to leave now, if you don’t mind. We’re running late.” He went to the trunk and opened a panel in a box labeled ‘samples.’ “Mr. Allerdyce?” he said, holding open the secret door. John sighed and then gave them a little wave before climbing into the hiding place. As their resident fugitive, he would have to be snuck past the guards at the gate and onto the private jet at the local airport. Just before the darkness closed in on him, he had one last glimpse of the School for Gifted Youngsters. 

_Graduation day,_ he thought to himself. 

 

***

 

She took to the air when night fell. She didn’t want to be spotted from the ground, so that was when she always traveled. She figured she was too small to be picked up on radar. She wore a face mask and goggles, and layers of thermal clothing against the winter wind. She had a GPS strapped to her wrist and kept an eye on her progress as she approached the coordinates. Then she saw the lights of the great house and began her descent. She was nervous. So much had happened to her, and so much had happened in her absence. 

It was a pretty good landing. Sometimes she misjudged and knocked a divot out of the soil; sometimes, she turned off her flight powers while still a foot above the ground. But she was improving. She pulled off the goggles and mask and tucked them into a pocket of her cloak, pulling the hood up over her head. No one was around, which wasn’t surprising, considering it was nine o’clock on a winter’s night. The fresh snow crunched under her feet as she approached the door. A match flared as someone in the shadow of the trees lit a cigarette. 

“Who’s there?” she called. _Was it Logan?_

“ _Henh_ , I should be h’asking da same ting,” said the unmistakable voice. “You’re da one dat just flew in like Hair Force One.” 

“What are you doing here, Gambit?” Rogue asked, not entirely unhappy to see the thief. 

“Me? I live ’ere. Just joined da Hex-Men! Dey ran out of honest types so dey called _moi_.” 

Remy gave her a quick rundown on the new arrivals at the mansion, and on the recent departures. 

She was reeling a bit from the news that most of the New X-Men were gone. Especially Bobby. She needed to sit. One of the stone benches had tumbled over. As if it weighed nothing, she lifted and righted it, clearing off the snow before she sat down. _You didn’t wait for me, Bobby_ , she thought _._ She knew their relationship had been fading away, but she had still hoped they might find a way forward together. 

Remy came and sat down beside her, closer than politeness would dictate. “ _À tu froid?_ ” he asked and put a big arm around her shoulder. 

His presumption was maddening, but nonetheless it amused her, and she didn’t mind the comfort. She had spent the last two months on an amazing solitary journey around the world, learning to use her new powers. She was also learning to live with two strangers in her head. She had Buster and Boomer’s powers, but also their ghosts. Paradoxically, having a crowd in her head made her feel even more isolated than she had when she was just the girl no one could touch. 

Tonight, her mental residents were mercifully quiet. “It’s so hard to believe. The Professor is _alive_? That’s amazing. Logan must have been so relieved. Do you think he’ll be coming back soon?” 

“Heh. As soon as da Wolverine ’ears Remy is around, ’e’ll be back to make sure I don’t steal da silverware.” 

But Rogue’s mind was running too fast to listen to his wisecracks. “I find it hard to imagine Bobby and John on the same team,” she said. “They’re liable to kill each other!” 

“ _Mais non_ ,” Gambit said matter-of-factly. “Dey are lovers.” 

Because of her hood, Rogue had to physically turn 90 degrees to see him, to see if it was another joke. His red eyes were unreadable, but there was no trace of the ironic smile that she’d hoped would be there. “Lovers…” she breathed. “But… Oh, my God.” 

“ _Chere_ , you are floating.” 

She had indeed risen a few inches off the bench in her shock. She grounded herself again. “Sorry.” 

“I guess da cure did not work?” 

“Fuck, I’m such an idiot! I just couldn’t understand why they ticked each other off so bad!” 

“ _L’amour est toujours fou_ ,” Remy said. 

She pushed his arm away and jumped to her feet. “Oh, God! The way I was throwing myself at him! And I could tell he wasn’t into it, but —” 

Remy rose and stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, gently cooing, “ _Chere_ , dis happens all da time. Not anyone’s fault. Just love.” 

She looked back at the mansion. “Shit, I bet Xavier is hearing all of this. I feel like such a fool.” 

“Nah, probably _monsieur_ _le professeur_ cannot read you, ’cause I’m standing ’ere. I block ’is telepathy.” 

Her curiosity overcame her misery and she turned to face him. “Really? He has a thief in the house and he can’t read him? That must drive him crazy.” She gave a little laugh and he smiled in return. What a dashing face he had, perfect except for a bump in his nose where it must have been broken once. Somehow that made him more accessible, more real. 

“ _Bien sûr_. My power blocks most mutant energy fields.” 

Rogue blinked. “Energy fields? You don’t think that it would block my…” She couldn’t continue, but Gambit seemed to understand. 

He shrugged. “Try if you want, _chere_. Just don’t kill me, _henh_?” 

Looking deep into his glowing eyes, she pulled off one of her gloves. The cold bit at her fingers as she reached for him. She hesitated a few inches from his face, and he grabbed her forearm, pulling her hand forward onto his jaw. She cringed, waiting for the awful thrill of his life energy pouring into her… but all she felt was a faint buzz, like a weak electric shock. 

Any more amazement tonight, and she would explode. She slowly lowered her hand. 

Remy chuckled. “See? I told you.” He leaned in close until their faces were almost touching. “You know, _chere_ , no one knows you’re back. And da night is so cold. _Toi et moi_ , we could go warm each other up, henh?” 

Out of all the responses that flashed through her mind, bashful or indignant, she found herself saying, “But I thought you liked boys!” 

He laughed. “ _Les mecs, les filles_. It’s all good when dey are as beautiful as you, _n’est-ce pas_?” 

She had spent years learning to control her responses so she wouldn’t accidentally kill someone, but now she had no control. “Which one is your room?” she asked, suddenly short of breath. Gambit smirked and pointed to a window on the second floor where a red bulb glowed provocatively. 

She put an arm around him and they lifted off together into the night sky. 

 

END OF BOOK FIVE


	44. Oh! You Pretty Things

**EPILOGUE**

_Oh! You pretty things_  
 _Don’t you know that you’re driving your mamas and papas insane?_  
 _Let me make it plain:_  
 _You gotta make way for the homo superior._

    – David Bowie 

Bobby felt kind of dumb to have expected Los Angeles to be the same as San Francisco. Where the city by the bay was contained, charming, hilly and kissed by the Pacific’s moist lips, Los Angeles was a sun-roasted, patchwork scrawl. He had felt overwhelmed his first few days there, as he and the other Champions were carted around by the staff of Warren’s company, Lofty Conceptuals, from one end of town to the other. In one location they’d had medical tests, in another they had gone through a grueling fitness assessment. Elsewhere there had been R &D sessions with uniform designers who were working with burn-proof, freeze-proof, and bullet-proof materials. And there were team meetings at a well-staffed headquarters. Bobby liked going there, where he had his own smart card that let him into the different areas, and the staff that called him “Mr. Drake.” 

Finally, there were appointments with a real estate specialist who took him and John all over town to see possible apartments. John was basically indifferent about where they lived, as long as he had a quiet room in which to write. But Bobby had immediately been smitten with North Hollywood and that’s where they had set up house, in a newly-built two-bedroom condo. John got more involved as they set up their space, and he was infinitely more passionate about the right furniture and the right colors than Bobby was. All in all, their different personalities complemented each other, and they soon had a real home that they could call their own. Between his position in the Champions and his new home with his boyfriend, Bobby felt amazingly mature. 

It was now early May, and the hot spring seemed to be turning into hot summer. The change was subtle for someone used to real weather, but Bobby found that living in more or less constant sunshine buoyed his mood. Four half-days a week, they joined their teammates to train, and if Jubilee had been tough before, she was positively fanatical now. Warren said that there would be no missions before the summer, so Bobby chose not to think about the future at all and just enjoy life. What a welcome change! 

He and John had time to learn the joys and challenges of a love that  
unfolded day by day, instead of in the dizzying rhythm of mad infatuation and sudden heartbreak. John was working on his new book, which meant Bobby had a lot of time on his own. He spent hours each day checking out his new city. Sometimes he joined Kitty or Jubilee for these excursions, but often he was his own company. Bobby began a renewed acquaintance with himself, learning who Bobby Drake was in the absence of school mates, endless  
responsibilities, and the wearying game of pleasing and impressing everyone around him. 

Tuesday was a typical day. They awoke at 7:30, cuddled in bed, which led to jerking each other off, showered, did a short round of calisthenics, and dressed. John made them eggs and toasted English muffins, Bobby cleaned the kitchen after (he was never neat enough to suit John’s standards). By then, 9 a.m. was rolling around and John was already looking at him impatiently. Bobby raced around the apartment, finding the things he wanted for the day — his tunes, his book, his water bottle, his shades — and stuffing them in his backpack while John booted up his laptop. 

Bobby was still rinsing toothpaste out of his mouth as John called from his office with a familiar edge to his voice, “9:05, Drake!” 9:00 to 12:00 was writing time, and Bobby was officially banished from the apartment. 

“I’m going. You know where we’re meeting for dinner?” 

John grunted his response. 

“John, it’s Kalimba’s on Wilshire. 6:30. Remember to wear your disguise. If you need me to change the reservation, call me before five. We’ll kill time somewhere until you can meet us.” 

“9:07!” 

Bobby ran into the office, kissed his boyfriend and then turned and raced out the door. 

He put on his headphones and sunglasses in the elevator. As the dance music pulsed through him, he bopped his way down the street. More than a few people checked him out. Many smiled. He seemed to have the knack of making people smile, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because he looked like a dork. He liked their neighborhood because, unlike most of the city, you could actually get places on foot. Furthermore, they were close to the subway. 

He found himself window-shopping as he walked, trying to find ways of justifying another new hat which called to him from a sportswear store. Snugger for outdoor training? Making sure the Champions always looked cool? Having a salary, he realized, was going to open up a dangerous new world of temptation. 

The sun was rising higher in the sky. He knew the temperature on his skin was already 78F. He cooled it down a few degrees as he walked the three blocks to his favorite coffee shop, where the décor was all New York City kitsch. Bobby thought of himself enough of a New Yorker to be snobbily amused by it. The café was still hopping with the pre-work crowd, but he managed to grab the last of the little tables, where he sat down with his coffee and pulled out his book. As the hour passed, the place quieted down, and he became lost in the narrative. He happened to look up at one point when the door opened, and saw a man enter. 

He had reddish curly hair and wore heavy-rimmed sunglasses whose lenses were almost black. Something about the way he sized up the room was very distinct, and to Bobby’s mind, weirdly familiar. The man saw Bobby and paused. Bobby closed his book and returned the stare for a few seconds before turning away, not wanting to be rude or provocative or whatever. Still, it felt like there had been some kind of connection there… Sure enough, after the man picked up a coffee from the counter, he came over and said, “Mind if I sit here?” 

Bobby looked around. There were a couple of free tables in the back, but the man had chosen to join him. 

“Uh, sure,” he said. The guy was clearly trying to pick him up. It felt awkward, but definitely exciting. There was a large gay community in North Hollywood, and though Bobby hadn’t gotten to know anyone, he felt comforted and kind of thrilled that they were there. 

The man pulled off his glasses to reveal warm, caramel-colored eyes with long lashes. They had another moment of intense eye contact, and this time it was the man who turned away first. “How are the pastries here?” he asked. 

Bobby nodded like a bobble-head doll. “Good, good. I like the lemon tarts.” 

“I’ll have to try one.” 

They went silent again. It was the weirdest conversation, as if there were some big _thing_ sitting on the table between them. 

Bobby thought the guy was pretty cute, but… “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice a bit. “I don’t think I can… I mean, I’d like to, but I have a boyfriend.” He was making himself more and more nervous, and the man’s eyes had gone wide. “I mean, we never officially agreed that we wouldn’t… with other people… but for now I just don’t think —” 

The man pulled away, his chair scraping a bit. “Huh? No! No, I’m not… I’m straight! I mean, sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the impression that —” 

“Oh! I just thought… Like when you came over… Oh fuck, I’m so dumb!” Bobby put his hands over his eyes. He looked up red-faced at the man who was blushing, too. They both laughed, and it took the edge off the awkwardness. 

The man said, “No, I just saw you here. And you looked… Well, like someone I used to know. I just thought I’d come by and talk until my wife got here.” 

Bobby shook his head at the absurdity of the situation. He thrust out a hand. “Bobby Drake.” 

The guy took his hand and gave it a hearty shake. “Dennis. Dennis Mabee. Damn, I have to be careful how I approach people, now that I’m living in the big city. I’m not really up on, uh, gay mating signals.” 

“Um, me neither, really. I’m kind of new to, you know, being gay. Or ‘out’ or whatever.” 

Dennis looked at him with a real fondness, and Bobby wondered what was going through his head. He was in his late 20s, dressed a bit conservatively, but he didn’t seem to be peddling Jesus or anything. Dennis said, “Can I tell you something? I used to have a problem with homosexuals. I had a… a friend who confided in me. I wasn’t very nice to him.” 

“Okay,” Bobby said, suddenly feeling like he was hearing a confession. 

“I wish… I wish I could go back and tell him I’m sorry. It wasn’t about him, it was my own fear. Baggage from my youth.” 

Bobby nodded. “Maybe he understood. If he was really your friend, he might have known that you were afraid. Is it too late to tell him?” 

“Unfortunately, yeah.” Dennis looked sad, and Bobby wondered if his friend was dead. 

“Well, sometimes all we can do is be better in the future.” 

“Thanks, Bobby. You’re pretty wise for someone your age. Maybe you’re going to be a psychologist.” 

Bobby laughed. “Actually, I’m thinking of going to school to become a social worker.” 

“That’s great… Hey, there’s my wife!” He pointed out the window at a woman on the sidewalk who was looking around, as if lost. Dennis jumped to his feet and vanished out the door. He returned in a few seconds leading the short blonde by the arm. She was pregnant. Dennis was pointing him out to her, but she couldn’t see him until her eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer light inside the coffee shop. Bobby smiled, and she looked like she had seen a ghost. 

Dennis and the woman walked over to the table, and maybe it had been Bobby’s imagination, because now she seemed totally normal. 

“Bobby, this is my wife, Kathleen.” 

Bobby stood up and pulled out a chair for her which she lowered herself into. “Thanks, Bobby,” she said with a little grunt. “Nice to meet you. Wow it’s hot! I need some water.” Dennis went to get it for her. 

“When’s your baby due?” Bobby asked. 

“Beginning of August. I already feel big as a house.” 

“Maybe it’s twins!” 

Dennis returned, putting the water down in front Kathleen who drank thirstily. “Nope,” he said. “Just one. A girl.” 

Kathleen said, “We’re going to name her Rachel.” 

Bobby nodded, feeling suffused with a kind of awed sweetness. “That’s a pretty name.” He looked at the couple who seemed so happy. Then something clicked. “Oh my God, I know who you are!” 

Dennis and Kathleen looked at each other, as if this was unwelcome news. 

Bobby said, “Sorry, I know it must be hard to be kind of semi-famous. You’re the coma couple, right?” 

Dennis smiled as if this was funny. “That’s such an awful name. But yeah, guilty as charged. I just wish we could put that whole thing behind us and be different people.” 

Bobby leaned towards them. “Don’t worry, this is Hollywood. You barely register on the celebrity meter. But, wow! I can’t believe it. John will be so mad he wasn’t here. He’s my boyfriend. He was kind of obsessed with you two!” 

Kathleen clucked her tongue. “Not the healthiest obsession for a young man to have.” 

“Yeah, well he’s a writer. He thought you guys were, you know, a metaphor.” 

She looked down at his book on the table. “The Grapes of Wrath. Did he give you that to read?” 

Bobby picked it up. “Yeah. He says I need to read more. If I want to help make the world a better place, I have to know more about it.” 

Kathleen’s hand was slowly rubbing her round belly. “He sounds like a smart one.” 

“Are you happy?” Dennis suddenly asked, and with such seriousness that Bobby was kind of taken aback. 

“Yeah, I am,” he answered picking up the serious tone. “I haven’t been this happy since I was a kid.” 

Dennis nodded. “That’s what we found out after we woke up in November. It’s never too late to start again.” 

Kathleen said, “Honey, we better go; interview’s in an hour. He’s applying for a teaching position at a private school near here.” 

Bobby and Dennis stood up, and Dennis helped Kathleen to her feet. “It was really great meeting you, Bobby,” she said and led her husband to the door. Dennis gave him one last indecipherable look before putting on his dark shades and disappearing into the sunshine. 

Bobby tried to read some more, but his thoughts were too jumbled; thoughts of the future, of two careers: social worker and Champion. His phone buzzed. He checked the text that had just come in, smiled and got up to go. He took the subway to Westwood and climbed back into the sun. He sat down on a bench under a palm tree to wait. Soon, he heard his name being called, and looked up to see Mike Haddad striding his way, incongruous in his black leather against the whites and pastels all around them. 

“Hey, dude!” Bobby yelled and jumped to his feet. They hugged and it felt like holding a bit of home in his arms. 

“Nice hug,” Mike laughed. “We’re such Californians. Did you feel my aura?” 

“Our chakras touched. Come on, we just have to walk a couple of blocks.” 

“Is that legal in L.A.?” 

They began to hike down the sidewalk, and Bobby found himself almost bouncing with excitement. “Yeah, if you don’t make a habit of it. I mean, I know up in Berkeley you’re only allowed to drive if the car runs on canola oil. When does your conference start?” 

“Tomorrow morning, but we already had some strategy meetings this morning with local mutant activists. You guys should really get involved; they’re a great crew. We’re making plans with them to set up a network of hospices for cure-sickness victims.” 

Bobby felt ashamed. “We don’t really have anything to do with the, uh, community.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Mike said, shaking his head. 

“What does that mean?” Bobby demanded. 

“Sorry, it’s just something the activists say. They think the superheroes are all snobs.” 

“We are not! Wait a minute, I’m not a _superhero!_ ” 

Mike gave him a smug smile. “Oh no, of course not. So, how do you define your role in the mutant rights struggle? Direct action? Extreme civil disobedience?” 

Bobby didn’t know how to react. Maybe he should be going to community meetings and protests. But he kind of thought Warren wouldn’t allow it. They were supposed to keep a low profile and _focus their energies._ “We’re here,” he told Mike as they stood in front of a small office building. “This is kind of our logistics center. It’s pretty cool.” 

“Worthington Industries paying for this?” Mike asked, looking up at the façade of steel and glass. 

“Well, yes and no.” 

“We’re helping launch a class-action suit against them on behalf of cure victims.” 

“Yeah, maybe you’ll keep that to yourself inside.” 

Lofty Conceptuals took up the top four floors of the building; reception was on the lowest of these. Bobby signed Mike in as his guest, but before he could take him anywhere, the receptionist told him to wait for Mr. Leung. Bobby realized the tour was about to get a lot less carefree. 

“Good morning, Mr. Drake,” said Leung, appearing from the inner offices in his crisp grey suit. 

“Hi, Desmond,” Bobby said, trying to muster up as much charm as possible. “This is my friend, Mike. Mike, Desmond Leung, the, um, Operations Manager. I was just going to show Mike around, if that’s okay.” 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Drake. I would need authorization for that from Mr.  
Worthington.” 

“Oh. We won’t be long… I just thought he’d be interested in the R&D labs and —” 

Leung cut him off. “If you would like to show him the view from the boardroom, that would be fine. I could have Simone bring you refreshments.” 

Bobby sagged. He felt like a total jerk — busted trying to show off. He turned to Mike, embarrassed. “Uh, it’s a nice view. You want to?” 

Mike smiled and shook his head, and Bobby was sure he was totally disgusted with him. “Sure, let’s see what L.A. looks like from the 12th floor.” 

They sat down in the big leather board chairs and Mike spun his 360 degrees. Bobby said. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the snobby superhero just got what was coming to him.” 

Mike stopped spinning. “What? No! I was thinking that no matter where you go, who you are, you look down and find your feet snared in red tape. Jesus, Bobby, I don’t think you’re a snob! Hey, I’m a punk and a grass-roots activist from an upper middle-class family. I’m the one with the bogus sense of self-righteous entitlement.” 

“I just wish I could have shown you the R&D room. They’re developing these cool weapons systems for us. And state-of-the-art tracking devices that —” 

“Hey, I don’t care. No, really, I don’t even want to know about it.” 

Bobby didn’t get it. “Why not?” 

Mike stood and looked out the tinted windows at the sun-bleached city. “Your world isn’t mine, okay? I mean, I get that you think you’re doing good with all these battles and stuff, but while the good guys were duking it out with the bad guys on Alcatraz, the Berkeley Mutant Center was picketing a fast-food chain for firing all their mutant employees. They were escorting young mutants past lines of bullies with baseball bats so they could go to their local high schools.” 

“But that’s great! Do you think I don’t support work like that? I would totally be there. I’d ice the bastards to the ground if they attacked the kids!” 

“But why does it always come down to violence with you guys? That just escalates the situation! When the news is full of footage of Magneto fighting Ms. Monroe with lighting bolts and power beams, it’s that high school kid who gets beaten up the next day. Because he’s one of those ‘dangerous muties’ who has to be stopped for the sake of the human race!” 

Bobby was astonished, filled with incoherent outrage. “But… but what are we supposed to do? Just let them kill us? Not fight the Friends of Humanity when they want to firebomb a mutant club, or the government when they’re building weapons to…” He stopped, knowing he wasn’t supposed to talk about that. He wished he could drag Mike into the strategy room, call up the Sentinel plans. Then, he’d see! 

There was a knock on the door, and a woman came in with a tray of lemonade and a plate of fresh donuts. “Here you are, Mr. Drake. You and your friend take as much time as you like. Please remember to sign out at the front desk when you’re leaving.” 

She stepped out and the two young men stood there in silence, not knowing how to return to civility. 

Bobby finally put a hand on Mike’s shoulder and said, “Hey, I think my smart card will get us onto the roof. Grab your drink and I’ll bring the donuts.” 

They stepped out into the hot, dry air and sat down in a shady corner. 

“Look,” Bobby said, pointing. “From up here, you can just see the ocean.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a joint. He lit up and gratefully took a hit. He offered the joint to Mike, who shook his head. 

“Straight edge,” he said. The sun was strong and he was already sweating. “Man, it’s hot!” 

“Hold on,” Bobby said. “I have a new trick. I picked it up from Storm.” He concentrated on the air around them and created a bubble of cool, lowering the temperature 10 degrees. 

Mike smiled. “I love having mutant friends. Listen, I’m sorry about what I said. I know you’re trying to do the right thing. Maybe I’m just bitter because Jubilee chose that life over our life together.” 

“Do you think she’s going to come to dinner with us?” 

“I still don’t know. She said she’d text me this afternoon. I kind of doubt it.” 

Bobby took another toke, and felt the buzz settling in nicely. “How are things with… what’s her name? Twitch?” 

“Long distance sucks, man. Anyway, she’s going to Smith in the fall and I’ll be at UC Berkeley. Maybe we should just give it up.” 

“Hey, don’t give up on true love when you find it!” 

“But I don’t know if it is ‘true love.’ Besides, man, there are a lot of _seriously_ cute girls in the movement!” 

Bobby smiled. “You get offers?” 

“I get offers. What about you and John? Are things good?” 

“Oh yeah, amazing.” The words came out sounding false. He made a little ice ball and began tossing it back and forth between his hands. 

“Amazing, _but…_ ” Mike prompted. 

He took another hit and held the pungent smoke as long as he could. Finally, he exhaled and said, “Last week, he found himself a therapist. Someone to talk to about stuff. He’s seeing her a couple of times a week.” 

“Okay, that sounds like it would be good for him.” 

“Do you think it’s about me? Do you think he’s seeing her because he’s not sure about me? About us?” 

“Bobby, no! You know John. If he didn’t want to be with you, he’d be out the door. Look, I don’t want to tell you about your boyfriend, but I know you. Sometimes you see the happy parts in people, and you kind of skip over the sad parts.” 

Bobby thought about this. It sounded true. But did that make him naïve or just optimistic? “So, what are you saying?” 

“I’m saying that John has, like, an ocean of sadness inside him. He doesn’t want us to see it and he doesn’t want our sympathy, but it’s there. Maybe he’s finally realizing that you can drown in that kind of ocean if you don’t do something about it.” 

_An ocean of sadness._ It hurt just to think about it. Bobby pinched out the remaining stub of his joint and put it away. “But _I_ should be the one to help him. I’m the one who loves him.” 

“You do help him. Just by loving him you help.” 

“How do you know, Mike? Maybe I suck at relationships. I mean, look what I did to Rogue!” 

“You don’t suck, dude. And that wasn’t a real relationship. That was just… a decoy. And hey, I know all about you and relationships. You’ve always been a good friend to me.” 

Bobby looked away. The temperature had crept back up, and he lowered it again for them. “Let’s eat our snack,” he said, reaching for the plate. 

The donuts were soft, sweet, and good. 

Mike grinned, his mouth dusted in icing sugar. “We sure are a long way from Boston, dude.” 

Bobby looked across the city and felt his heart lighten again. “Yeah, maybe the Pacific was supposed to be our ocean the whole time. Maybe this is home.” 

“Yeah, maybe it is,” Mike said. “For now, anyway.” 

Below them, the cars and pedestrians hurried from one urgent appointment to the next. Soon the two young men would have to hurry, too, catching hold of the reins of their swiftly surging lives, riding them into the unknown future. But for a brief, suspended moment, they could just stop and appreciate the view. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this novel. I sincerely hope you were moved and entertained. I am grateful for the experience of having written it, for the contributions of my betas, and for the wonderful reader feedback that always seems to arrive just when I'm feeling down.
> 
> I am now writing original fiction, as well as making music. If you're interested in following these activities, you can find me [here](http://rabbitfish.info).


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